[pran]

gordontd, on 2012-September-30, 10:11, said:

Yes, so let's resolve that question to the best of our abilities, and the rest will fall into place. You seem to want to decide there was no revoke, without trying to find out if that was so.

No, I do want to find out if a revoke is agreed upon or if a revoke obviously must have been committed. But I don't want to waste time on a futile investigation on an irregularity that should have been noticed and reported long time ago if it really was committed.

[gordontd]

pran, on 2012-September-30, 10:13, said:

I cannot remember making, and cannot now find any reference to L64 in the post to which you commented and which was explicitly about Law 92B?

That's my point - you referred us to a limitation made by L64A & L64B when we weren't talking about those laws, so I did exactly the same thing.

[blackshoe]

pran, on 2012-September-30, 10:10, said:

[the more will the burden of uncertainty reflect on the interests of the side who claims that opponents have committed an irregularity.

I think you made this one up. I can't find any law that says it.

[gordontd]

pran, on 2012-September-30, 10:10, said:

The more time has passed after completion of a board the more difficult will it be to ascertain precisely what happened and the more will the burden of uncertainty reflect on the interests of the side who claims that opponents have committed an irregularity.

I agree with this, but it's less extreme than the position you've been taking during most of this conversation.

[blackshoe]

There is no requirement to report a revoke by whatever time it is you think it has to be reported by (before the cards are mixed, before the next board is started, before the end of the round, whatever).

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2012-September-30, 10:24, said:

There is no requirement to report a revoke by whatever time it is you think it has to be reported by (before the cards are mixed, before the next board is started, before the end of the round, whatever).

So why then do we have Laws 64B4 and 64B5 at all?

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2012-September-30, 10:22, said:

I think you made this one up. I can't find any law that says it.

Who has the burden of showing why a result that has been agreed upon should be changed?

[pran]

gordontd, on 2012-September-30, 10:23, said:

I agree with this, but it's less extreme than the position you've been taking during most of this conversation.

In that case you read more in (some of) my posts than what I intend.

[gordontd]

pran, on 2012-September-30, 10:27, said:

So why then do we have Laws 64B4 and 64B5 at all?

They exist to tell us when rectification is given for revokes. L64C tells us how to adjust for damage when L64A & L64B don't apply, or when those rectifications are insufficient.

[gordontd]

pran, on 2012-September-30, 10:31, said:

In that case you read more in (some of) my posts than what I intend.

In that case your posts don't adequately reflect your intentions.

[blackshoe]

pran, on 2012-September-30, 10:29, said:

Who has the burden of showing why a result that has been agreed upon should be changed?

The director.

[pran]

pran, on 2012-September-30, 10:29, said:

Who has the burden of showing why a result that has been agreed upon should be changed?

blackshoe, on 2012-September-30, 11:07, said:

The director.

Fair enough.
And as Director I shall let the result that has been agreed upon stand unless the party requesting a change shows why such change should be made. An unsubstantiated allegation that there has been an irregularity will not be sufficient.

[blackshoe]

pran, on 2012-September-30, 13:24, said:

Fair enough.
And as Director I shall let the result that has been agreed upon stand unless the party requesting a change shows why such change should be made. An unsubstantiated allegation that there has been an irregularity will not be sufficient.

You as director are obligated to investigate the allegation and determine on the basis of the balance of probabilities in whatever evidence you are able to collect whether there has been an irregularity. If instead you simply say "sorry, your allegation alone is insufficient" then you are not doing your job.

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2012-September-30, 13:33, said:

You as director are obligated to investigate the allegation and determine on the basis of the balance of probabilities in whatever evidence you are able to collect whether there has been an irregularity. If instead you simply say "sorry, your allegation alone is insufficient" then you are not doing your job.

I wrote unsubstantiated allegation

Are you saying that a player (after agreeing on a result) may request a full investigation by the Director just by saying: "There must have been a revoke" (or words to that effect) without giving any reason for saying this?

Then please take a look at my problem example in post #48 and tell me how you would handle that (hypothetical) case, what investigations you would carry out and so on.

An agreed upon result carries a rather heavy probability weight with me.

[blackshoe]

pran, on 2012-September-30, 16:57, said:

An agreed upon result carries a rather heavy probability weight with me.

I understand that, I just think you give it too much weight.

[bluejak]

When a TD goes to a table he establishes certain facts to his own satisfaction. He may be certain what happened, very sure, fairly sure, or it is his best guess. Having done so he applies the relevant Law. If it is a book ruling, he applies the law, preferably by reading it out of the book. If it is a judgement ruling, he will consult and consider, reach a conclusion, and apply the law based on his judgement.

How much of this is appealable?

Anything that is not a matter of Law, ie anything where his judgement is involved.

So you can appeal his view of the facts and his judgement of what happened. You can appeal his judgement in a judgement ruling, so appeal what his actual ruling is. You can not appeal [to an AC anyway] what the Law is or how it is applied.

Now, if I have understood some articles correctly, some people think that if his judgement is certain, it is a matter of Law not judgment. That is not correct: if a TD is certain it does not mean other people would come to the same conclusion. Nor does his certainty change it from a view of the facts to a matter of Law: it is still a view of the facts.

Some have asked: if a TD is certain that a revoke occurred it must be a matter of Law because he is certain. What if he is wrong? And if he is not wrong, why does it matter: the AC is not going to over-rule him, is it?

One strange question was - if I have understood it correctly - that if a TD's decision is correct, how can we allow the AC to over-rule him? Well, they won't, will they?

Ok, ACs are not perfect, but nor are TDs. If the system works perfectly, we shall not get a wrong decision by an AC over-ruling a TD because they won't.

[blackshoe]

bluejak, on 2012-September-30, 19:52, said:

You can not appeal [to an AC anyway] what the Law is or how it is applied.

You can appeal this. The AC cannot change the ruling. Not the same thing as "you can't appeal".

Under the 1997 laws, an appeal on a question of law could be made to the "National Authority". Review of the case by an appeals committee was a pre-requisite, even though the AC, as now, could do nothing other than recommend the TD change his ruling. Under the current laws, Whether an appeal on a matter of law can be made to the Regulating Authority is up to the RA. The ACBL elections on this subject are:

Quote

8. Law 93C1: A further appeal to the Regulating Authority (ACBL) may be allowed only as follows:
a. On a point of law to and at the discretion of the ACBL Laws Commission.
b. On an allegation of bias of a committee member or members to and at the discretion of the ACBL Appeals and Charges Committee. The appellant is required to present evidence that the bias was not known at the time of the hearing.
c. The appeal must be filed within thirty (30) days of the decision of the Bridge Appeals Committee that heard the issue.
9. Law 93C3(a): Except as noted in 7 above, the responsibility of dealing finally with any appeal of a Director’s decision is that of the tournament’s bridge appeals committee.

I believe "7" in item 9 above is a typo: it should be "8". In effect item 8 says "we'll hear an appeal on a point of law if we feel like it". My understanding is that the LC will almost certainly not "feel like it" if the appeal comes from any event below NABC+ level. Also, it seems to me that if an appeal is to go to the RA, they are likely going to require that it has been heard by the Tournament AC already.

I suppose other RAs (the EBU for example) may have set up different procedures, but afaik, none have officially said "you can't appeal a point of law". Not yet, anyway.

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2012-September-30, 22:48, said:

You can appeal this. The AC cannot change the ruling. Not the same thing as "you can't appeal".

Right. While the AC can't overrule the TD in these cases, they can recommend that the TD change his ruling. And such a recommendation should carry more weight with the TD than requests from the appellants, who are obviously biased. I'd expect it to be very rare for TDs to ignore AC recommendations -- he'd better be able to defend his decision very well to club or league management.

[blackshoe]

Returning to the question in the OP ("Has the appeals committee any powers to over-rule the TD or are they only able to recommend to the TD that he changes such a ruling?") in the case presented in that post, I have come to understand that the AC has the power to over-rule the TD on matters of judgement, and that whether a revoke occurred is a matter of judgement, as is the determination of the score to which to adjust. If however the AC agrees that the revoke occurred, they cannot rule that the TD may not adjust the score, although they can overturn the actual adjustment and substitute a different one (in theory including, I suppose, "no adjustment" based on a judgement that there was no damage).

[aguahombre]

If we are back to the question in the OP, then I am not convinced that there is an appeal or an AC with any powers at all.

The calling for an AC was by the NOS to challenge the original ruling of no revoke. The TD has ruled that there was a revoke.