[blml] Is "no agreement" like a get-out-of-jail-free card? [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]

[richard.hills at immi.gov.au]

Jerry Fusselman:

>In the ACBL, though I have not played as often as I would like
>recently, it seems that when a player says "no agreement," the
>director is delighted, echos "no agreement!" as if his job is done,
>and leaves.

[snip]

>Proof is rarely asked for.  Followups rarely occur.  It functions
>like a get-out-of-jail-free card.  Do you think this hypothesis is
>right?  If so, does anyone see this a weakness in how we rule the
>game?

2007 Law 85A1:

When the Director is called upon to rule on a point of law or
regulation in which the facts are not agreed upon, he proceeds as
follows:
In determining the facts the Director shall base his view on the
balance of probabilities, which is to say in accordance with the
weight of the evidence he is able to collect.

Richard Hills:

Some players have the mistaken belief that they need to disclose
only their explicit agreements.  For those players some of their
"Undiscussed" explanations are MI, since on those occasions they
should be saying, "We have an implicit agreement that.....".

While a gullible TD who automatically rules "Undiscussed" is true
has committed a director's error in applying Law 85A1, a cynical
TD who automatically rules "Undiscussed" is false has committed a
more damaging Law 85A1 director's error (in that the TD has deemed a
player is a liar without bothering to weigh the evidence).

One such cynical TD made the remarkable suggestion that since he was
automatically going to rule "Undiscussed" as MI, a player should
therefore lie about the actual partnership's non-agreement, and
instead pretend that the partnership did have an agreement.  The
rationale was that if the pretended agreement corresponded to the
cynical TD's erroneous ruling, then the partnership would get a
better score by its ch**t*ng.


Best wishes

Richard James Hills
Governance & Graduates Section
National Training Branch
Department of Immigration and Citizenship
Telephone: 02 6223 8439
Email: richard.hills at immi.gov.au

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