Off the top of my head I can’t remember who said it (a judge or high ranking legal) but it was said of the Essendon players as being the “low hanging fruit”.
The rot set in when John Coates walked into the then prime minister’s (Howard) office and “demanded” that he sign up to the Geneva Convention against Doping in Sport. At the time Howard was hesitant about signing over jurisdiction of anti-doping to WADA. A reliable source in Government at the time told J34 that Coates suggested to Howard that he (Howard) does not want to be the PM who has to tell the Australian Public that they have been banned from future Olympics. Especially since Australia was one of only 4 countries who had attended every Modern Olympics.
Both sides of politics will not go anywhere near the Essendon stitch-up because both are complicit in it. I don’t believe that J34 could have attempted anything more than we did. The media have saga fatigue and will never admit their mistakes. The only two journalists that have challenged the Governments, and ASADA (SIA) have been Mick Warner and Tracy Holmes.
I agree with you about the lawyers. Collectively their performance was appaling. The weakest link in the Essendon case was the science, and lack of closer scrutiny of the ASADA evidence. The Prohibited List always has and always will be a root cause of any anti-doping case. The science does not support the placement of the majority of substances on that List.
It is very complex mess with many corrupted individuals. Heffsgirl has the list and the cannon is ready.
Just on the SIA. Some may not have read the fallout from the Shayna Jack case. I quote from Daily Telegraph article from David Riccio.
Aussie swimmer Shayna Jack targeted by drug testers days after being cleared to return as SIA slammed
Hours after being cleared to return to swimming, Shayna Jack was doorknocked by drug testers. And a district court judge says she is being treated like a test case.
Australian swimmer Shayna Jack was doorknocked by drug testers at 11pm – only 72 hours after [finally being cleared to return to competitive racing.
The late-night test by doping officials is another example of the two-year “prosecutorial pursuit” of Jack, according to respected NSW district court judge Paul Conlon.
Conlon doubled-down by claiming Jack was treated as a “test case” by government agency, Sport Integrity Australia.
He added that “a clean out at the very top” of SIA was required over the entire handling of the saga.
Conlon went on to say that the appeal by the SIA was draconian.
What John Fahey said at the 11 May 2013 WADA Executive Committee meeting
… it had become apparent that the coach had been taking certain things that the players had also probably been taking. The Coach had been feeling a bit tired and listless and had been looking at keeping his youthful appearance …
Whoever fed that line to Fahey?
Australia was a member of that Committee at the time.
John Fahey…stated he hates Victoria in general and Australian Rules in particular…the puppet master of it all IMO and the AFL walked into it like the 3 blind mice
As to the judgments that our lawyers were appalling, the CAS report on the 34 players does not include any reference to the submissions or legal arguments of the lawyers for the 32/ plus the 2 whom Gordon junior claimed to represent,
Absent access tio their submissions , I reserve judgment on their performance,
I do note however that David Grace, the one lawyer with experience in the more fluid CAS system of due process in the weighting and acceptance of the timing of submission of evidence, was forced by CAS rules to recuse himself from appearing before CAS for the 34.
Simple standard, did the players get a fair process and acceptable outcome? Unless you somehow think they did then it’s pretty clear their representation was completely and utterly useless. Could Dennis Denuto have delivered a worse outcome?
What if I thought they didn’t?
The written judgment does not record whether objections were raised on due process grounds and were not accepted.
I am aware of at least one valid objection that was raised that was not accepted.
I have been involved in these sorts of processes at the international level and have an understanding how it works. Anyone with a basic grasp would have raised the due process flag on the weighting and timing of evidence , including characterisation of the status of the AAT rulings on the Sandor Earl appeal. Spigelman would have been well aware of that also,
The record was constructed in a way to avoid a basis for appeal to the Swiss Court.
In other jurisdictions, there is a stage in the process where a preliminary or draft judgment is provided to the litigants for comment and objections, these are recorded in the final judgment, with the reasoning for acceptance or rejection of the objections.
This CAS judgment was rigged , with the appearance of the conclusions drafted prior to hearings. You only have to compare it with the CAS record of the Chinese swimmer.
Maybe I don’t have a big enough imagination but I can’t dream of a worse process & outcome for the players. 3 years of protracted trampling of their basic rights, no voice, denial of any real court process & then a fixed quasi-court double jeopardy farce that ends in further punishment. What exactly did any of their legal representation achieve?
I’d also love to see what would’ve happened from an athlete’s rights perspective in an alternative universe where Essendon didn’t oppose Glaswegian Tom McNeil’s attempts to build a strong player’s union back in the 50s.
I’m an examiner. If I’ve decided you the student are going to fail prior to any examination, then whether or not you are a good student is irrelevant. Further, there may not be a clear process to root out a crooked examiner.
We don’t know what happened inside the CAS hearing, except for a few leaks such as Jobe telling us the CAS ‘crooked examiners with the predetermined result’ were not even listening to him.
There are many morally corrupt institutions within our society that have good people with good intentions working within in them (and some bastards as well), but the inherent corruption within the institution is the insurmountable problem.
Here’s a few examples -
Banks
CAS
Major political parties
FIFA
Churches
WADA
Universities
AFL
Mining companies
the CCP.
Ah maybe because it was a different process, different jurisdiction, different language for some of it & once again as has been pointed out numerous times including by you, different representation with Grace unable to represent the players at CAS. Just because a player was good against one team doesn’t mean their performance the next week can’t be really bad - a simple distinction I would have thought.
