Haven’t we screamed for years how absolutely fucked ISAF is?
Open Letter to members of ISAF Council:
As you prepare for the ISAF Annual Meeting next week, and knowing that you have something like 215 submissions to consider, it is time to take a pause and give serious consideration to the state of the Disciplinary Commission (DC) and Regulation 35. Submissions 37, 38, and 39 directly relate to the Disciplinary Commission. Instead, take a step back, and look at the bigger picture of sailor and race official discipline in a more comprehensive fashion.
The whole problem with the way the DC works starts with the Executive Committee. It was the Executive Committee who put forth the submission to create the DC. The Executive Committee set forth the parameters that the DC could write their own rules with exactly zero oversight from either the Executive Committee, or Council. It was if the Executive Committee allowed the Racing Rules Committee to re-write the racing rules in a vacuum. As members of the Council it is reasonable to presume you just missed that part when this submission was voted in. Just like with 215 submissions at the coming AGM, who can be expected to read every line of every submission? But, as members of Council, you can be certain that when the fur starts flying about what has happened as a consequence of the new disciplinary rules of procedure, and it will, that the Executive Committee and the Staff will point their fingers at you as having approved the opportunity for a handful of people to devise the disciplinary process for the whole sport, with exactly zero oversight.
Then we get to the part about empaneling the DC. Here’s the regulation about the requirements to empanel the DC:
8.15.2 Regulation 8.2 does not apply to the appointment or removal of members of the Commission. Council shall appoint the Chairman, Vice-Chairman and members of the Commission on the nomination of the Executive Committee for a specific term. The membership of the Commission shall include a sufficient number of legally qualified members to enable it to discharge it functions.
Having searched the ISAF Executive Committee minutes I found nothing about the required nomination by the Executive Committee of the DC members. I later learned that VP Scott Perry was given oversight of the DC working party. It seems what happened is that somehow the some members of (maybe all?) DC working party were put forth as the interim members of the DC. I asked Perry if he did this on his own, or if the ISAF staff did it without his knowledge. He has to date refused to answer my question.
However, ISAF in-house counsel jon napier responded to this question. He said that as a matter of Executive Committee work process Perry was assigned oversight of the DC, and therefore his recommendation constituted nomination. That is a pretty weak premise, particularly because nothing about the nomination comporting to the Regulations shows up in the Minutes of the Executive Committee. Ever. Anywhere. Read on.
