[blml] Sykes and Mist Beads

[Eric Landau]

On Jan 31, 2008, at 7:01 PM, richard.hills at immi.gov.au wrote:

> 2007 Law 40B2(a):
>
>> The Regulating Authority is empowered without restriction
>> to ..... allow conditionally, any special partnership
>> understanding .....
>
> Richard Hills:
>
> Under a literal reading of "without restriction" it seems
> that a Regulating Authority could perpetrate this rule:
>
> "You may use the Ghestem convention on the condition that
> you never claim, never misbid, and also never bid a slam."
>
> So I still argue that "without restriction" should be read
> as "without restriction, unless contrary to another more
> specific Law".
>
> That is, I prefer the Kojak rule-of-the-thumb, "a specific
> Law takes priority over a more general Law" to another more
> arbitrary policy, "if you do not like what a Law says, find
> another Law".

As would I.  But we clearly established in a thread of a couple of  
years ago that, per WBF interpretation, the power to regulate  
conventions granted by the 1997 L40D was absolute, to the point where  
a perverse RA could perpetrate something like, "You may use the  
Ghestem convention only if you are left-handed and under 50."  I  
don't see anything in the new L40 that would change this.  What the  
new L40 clearly  does is expand the RA's 1997 authority over  
"conventions" to apply to "partnership understandings" of any kind.


Eric Landau
1107 Dale Drive
Silver Spring MD 20910
ehaa at starpower.net