YOU are, no doubt, familiar with the saying that “Not only must justice be done; it must also be seen to be done”. Everyone is. It’s been around for a long time - since a celebrated English legal case of 1924, in fact.
So when you, or I, or anyone else, heard that two Scottish rugby players could miss Sunday’s World Cup quarter-final against Australia after being cited by an Australian - well, we could see there is a problem of perception there. And we could see that problem without casting any aspersions whatsoever on the actual integrity of the process.
This issue of principle has nothing to do with Scott Nowland, the independent citing commissioner who ruled that Jonny Gray and Ross Ford had a case to answer for an alleged act of foul play in Scotland’s win over Samoa last Saturday. Mr Nowland may well be the most incorruptible individual since Robespierre and the finest legal brain since Atticus Finch. It matters not.
The one thing that should matter is that saying about the visibility, the transparency, of justice. And that means visible to everyone. Visible not only to those who are au fait with the finer points of rugby’s disciplinary procedures, but also visible to the millions of people around the world who may know next to nothing about the sport but are at least paying a little bit of attention to it thanks to the excellence of some of the matches at this World Cup.
Visible, so that there is a clear implicit message to everyone: this is a sport that cares about conducting its business properly and professionally. Visible, so that numpty conspiracy theorists do not have the smallest plot of solid ground on which to construct their lurid hypotheses.
Unfortunately, World Rugby, the global governing body for the sport, does not yet see things in quite the same way. Since the news about the Gray and Ford citation broke on Monday, its representatives have issued statements to individual journalists, as well as a general statement to all media via the tournament website, all placing great emphasis on the integrity of the people involved in the citing process. By doing so, they are either missing the point completely, or implying that the integrity of those people is so unimpeachable that it is us who are missing the point by asking questions about the visibility of the process.
Here, verbatim, is the general statement, released yesterday afternoon under the heading “Statement of clarification - the independent disciplinary process”:
“The fully independent Rugby World Cup 2015 disciplinary process features a highly-experienced team of Citing Commissioners and Judicial Officers who are applying World Rugby’s disciplinary regulations in accordance with the laws of the game in a wholly consistent and fair manner.
“Selected on merit, the team - representing 11 nations - comprises 11 citing commissioners, 10 judicial officers and four appeal officers, who preside over all disciplinary matters concerning on-field acts of foul play and any misconduct matters that might arise.
“Player welfare is World Rugby’s number one priority and as the global governing body, it has a duty of care to protect players on the field of play through the on-field match official process and off-field disciplinary process.
“This commitment is reflected in the rugby-specific sanctioning regime set out in Regulation 17, which was reviewed in 2012 by an independent process involving former players, coaches, match officials and members of the media and resulted in a recalibration of the disciplinary sanctions table.
“The appointments for the pool phase were made available to the teams. In relation to the Citing Commissioners appointments, they are neutral relative to the match officials and the teams and this was achieved during the pool phase, while passage neutrality will be applied for the knockout phase appointments as previously communicated.
“World Rugby is satisfied that the fully independent disciplinary process is being fairly and consistently applied across the board at this Rugby World Cup. All full written judgements are available via www.rugbyworldcup.com for media and public to view.”
It is, of course, wholly laudable that player welfare is the governing body’s priority, and there is no harm at all in repeating that commitment at regular intervals. But it is not germane to the issue. What is germane is the lack of “passage neutrality” at all stages of the World Cup.
Ensuring the neutrality of commissioners from the quarter-finals on is not enough. It should be easy to achieve from the first round of matches onwards. Just ensure that when, say, Scotland play Japan, the citing officials do not come from the countries that either team play next.
In the case of the last round of pool games, we need to ensure that the commissioner for the Scotland-Samoa match does not come from the country whose team could end up playing a quarter-final against either of those sides. In this case, with Samoa out of the running, it was known some time before that match that Scotland, if they went through, would have a last-eight match against Wales or Australia.
World Rugby argues that, with a relatively small number of commissioners and officers, neutrality throughout the tournament is difficult. Let’s accept that this time; it’s too late to do anything about it now. But the way to ensure we do not have to accept it four years hence is simple: hire more commissioners and officers.
The financial cost would be negligible to a tournament of this size. And the benefit to the image of rugby, once justice was seen to be done, would be substantial.
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