[blml] San Diego Lightfoot Sue [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]

[richard.hills at immi.gov.au]

Dissenting opinion by Hugh Ross:

>West forgot a convention (which is legal). His
>partner bid impeccably subsequent to the misbid.
>West Alerted South that there was a possible
>misunderstanding before South bid 2S
>(unnecessarily in my opinion). West did not say
>anything to North prior to the opening lead,
>since the law specifically states that he does
>not have to. I do not believe any offense was
>committed by West.....

Richard Hills:

It is true that a misbid of a convention is not
an infraction (unless, as Grattan points out, the
sponsoring organisation has merely given
conditional approval to a convention, with that
condition being that that particular convention
is never psyched or misbid).  And it is true that
West had no obligation to tell North that West
had misbid.  The footnote to Law 75 states that a
misbidder has no responsibility to reveal that
they have misbid, neither immediately nor
subsequently.

Appeals committee, "active ethics" assertion:

>.....Others argued that since West was under no
>(legal) obligation to say *anything*, he should
>not be penalized for helping only one opponent.
>The rebuttal was that this was contrary to the
>concept of "active ethics".....

WBF Code of Practice, "Ethics" (page 6):

"A contestant may only be penalized for a lapse
of ethics where a player is in breach of the
provisions of the laws in respect of the conduct
of players. A player who has conformed to the
laws and regulations is not subject to criticism.
This does not preclude encouragement of a
generous attitude to opponents, especially in the
exchange of information behind screens."

Richard Hills:

However, a misexplanation of an agreement is an
infraction.  Under the ACBL screen regulation,
created pursuant to Law 80E, West was required to
alert and explain his own calls to South.  West
failed to alert his own 2D call, which by
partnership agreement was a conventional transfer
to hearts.

It is true that once East bid 2H, West then told
South that West believed a partnership
misunderstanding occurred.  So it is true that
South knew exactly what was happening at the
table - West believed that 2D showed diamonds,
while East believed that 2D showed hearts.

But West did not tell South which of these two
beliefs was the actual East-West partnership
agreement, so West had only partially rectified
his infraction of the first sentence of Law 75A:

"Special partnership agreements, whether
explicit or implicit, must be fully and freely
available to the opponents (see Law 40)."

The question is whether a procedural penalty can
be applied to West for West's partial technical
misinformation infraction of Law 75A which not
only did not damage South, but could not damage
South.  The answer is yes, since such a technical
infraction fits the Law 90A criterion "violates
correct procedure".

Whether it is desirable that such a policy should
exist mandating a procedural penalty for every
technical non-damaging infraction of Law is
another matter.  Either zillions more Directors
would need to be hired to enforce this policy, or
an average session would last a week with the
Director answering zillions of requests from
players to assess procedural penalties after each
and every technical non-damaging infraction.

According to anecdote, one National Bridge
Organisation has a compromise policy.  If a
Director rules, "infraction, but no damage", the
Director does not apply a procedural penalty.
Should the non-offending side then launch a
meritless appeal against the Director's ruling,
the Appeals Committee also rules, "infraction, but
no damage".  But the Appeals Committee relieves
its frustration for being forced to waste time
hearing that meritless appeal by applying a
procedural penalty to the offending side for its
infraction of law.  This compromise policy means
that the score of the offending side arbitrarily
varies according to whether their opponents are
silly enough to launch a meritless appeal.

This anecdotal NBO policy is contrary to the WBF
Code of Practice recommendation on the
"Inclination of committee" (page 6):

"The expectation is that each appeal committee
will presume initially that the Director's ruling
is correct. The ruling is overturned only on the
basis of evidence presented. For this reason the
Director must inform the committee if a ruling in
favour of the non-offending side reflects a
margin of doubt that continues to exist after the
appropriate consultation procedure."

Richard Hills:

Ergo, if the Director's assessment of fact under
Laws 84 and 85 is that a particular infraction of
law is too trivial to warrant a procedural
penalty, then the Appeals Committee should find
some new and relevant facts before deciding to
impose a procedural penalty.


Best wishes

Richard James Hills, amicus curiae
Level 6 Aqua Training Suite, DIAC
02 6225 6776

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