How Rulings are Given: Consultation

by David Stevenson, England

"Director!"

What happens next? If it is a mechanical matter, the Director reads the Law to the players and that is that. However, suppose a judgement ruling is involved - what next? The Floor Director takes all the facts, tells the players to proceed with the next board, and disappears.

Now the ruling is discussed among the Directors, and a decision is taken by consensus. The Floor Director does not decide on his own: in fact, on rare occasions he may actually disagree with the final ruling. If there is a lot of bridge judgement involved in the ruling, the consultation will include some uninvolved players. This is especially the case if a weighted assigned score is considered under Law 12C3.

After the Floor Director finds out the consensus ruling, he communicates it to the players involved and tells them that they may appeal. If they do so it will be heard in peaceful surroundings in front of an Appeals Committee of between three and five people.

The Committee does not re-consider the case from the start: their job is to review the Director's ruling, and one question that a Committee should always ask the appellants is "Why do you believe the Director's ruling to be wrong?". The Floor Director usually presents the case to them, but occasionally there is another Presenting Director, usually when the Floor Director cannot be spared from other duties [for example, if there are two appeals and he is the Floor Director for each].

When I write up an Appeals case, I want to show who the Floor Director is. He is important in my view because he is the person who gets the facts when they are fresh, using his skill to make sure he knows exactly what happened, and usually presents them to the Committee.

However, Bill Schoder [Kojak] does not agree: "At this time I am unhappy with any specific Director being named because people who do not understand the process will assume the ruling is his. I may have a different view in future once the process is generally understood."

Editor's note:

• This article first appeared in the Daily Bulletin at the World Championships in Maastricht, the Netherlands in 2000
• If you want to comment on this article, why not write direct to David Stevenson?
• I shall be pleased to hear from you!

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