Abstract
This article provides a review of judicial scrutiny of decisions of the leading sports authorities in Ireland. It focuses primarily on the Gaelic Athletic Association (‘GAA’), Ireland’s leading sports organisation, and the manner in which it has dealt with the increasing incidents of so-called ‘ambush injunctions’, whereby individual participants seek, primarily through the use of interlocutory orders, to circumvent playing suspensions. The GAA’s experience, which is all the more remarkable given that it administers fundamentally amateur games, has been reflected across the Irish sporting spectrum with the Irish horse-racing authorities (the ‘Turf Club’), the Football Association of Ireland (‘FAI’) and the Irish Rugby Football Union (‘IRFU’) facing similar ‘rushes to judgment’.An interim assessment of the GAA’s recently enhanced disciplinary mechanism – the Disputes Resolution Authority – follows this introductory context. The DRA, of which the author is a panel member, is an arbitral-based disciplinary tribunal, independent of the GAA’s central authorities, and hears disputes referred to it on an appellate basis only. The establishment of the DRA is of interest for Irish sports administration as a whole. It is suggested that a body of similar operational remit might be used as the basis of a national sports disputes tribunal for Ireland. This analysis of the DRA and the concomitant promotion of a soi-disant Irish Court of Arbitration for Sport, forms the central part of this brief review, throughout which frequent use is made of the persuasive authority of English law.
Highlights
O’Connell litigation is often labelled an ‘ambush injunction’
The Irish courts have noted that the common law and private contractual rights of such claimants are underpinned by an array of implied constitutional rights such as the right to fair procedures, to natural and constitutional justice and the right to earn a livelihood
The caveat ‘on occasion’ indicates that even if a sports body was deemed to be a public entity under the Datafin test, the nature of the specific disciplinary decision in question might still be considered private in character and not subject to judicial review
Summary
When a decision of an Irish sports governing body is challenged by an individual or club, the action most 4 frequently rests on a private law based claim of breach of contract or it may, when appropriate, proceed on the basis of the common law doctrine of restraint of trade. The caveat ‘on occasion’ indicates that even if a sports body was deemed to be a public entity under the Datafin test, the nature of the specific disciplinary decision in question might still be considered private in character and not subject to judicial review. This contention remains at a nascent stage, the most likely and regular matter for consideration by the courts in the circumstances of sport will be the horizontal effect of article 6 – the right to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law (Boyes, 2001). Before elaborating further on the substantive elements that might underpin a full court challenge to the competency of a sports disciplinary mechanism, a tactic that has been used frequently in Ireland to circumvent the decisions of such internal disciplinary tribunals should be discussed
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