Sanzaar has confirmed the implementation of a new and updated judicial process ahead of the 2017 Super Rugby tournament.
World Rugby has endorsed the process, which Sanzaar believes represents an enhancement to an important part of the tournament, in order to provide improved consistency and efficient decision-making.
Central to the amendments for 2017 is the formation of the foul play review committee. The committee will be comprised of a consistent panel of three members, who in the first instance will review all incidents of red cards, citing commissioner referrals and misconduct, and make determinations based on the information placed before them.
The committee will meet at a fixed time, to be determined at the conclusion of each round, and the infringing player will have the ability to accept the decision of the committee or have the right to be heard at a formal judicial hearing within the following 24 hours.
Senior judicial officer Nigel Hampton (New Zealand) has been appointed to chair the committee and will be assisted by former Super Rugby and international players John Langford (Australia) and Stefan Terblanche (South Africa).
In the determination of an incident and the handing down of sanctions, the committee will now have the ability to include any regular season Super Rugby byes as part of a meaningful sanction. This is a significant change and will ensure all sanctions issued during Super Rugby are treated consistently across all teams.
'The new process is the result of the identification of certain challenges within the application of an effective and consistent judicial process. It has followed a comprehensive review of Super Rugby 2016 and a consultation process with the four national unions,' said Sanzaar CEO Andy Marinos.
'The changes also follow World Rugby’s acceptance, following a Judicial Review Conference last year that competition organisers be allowed to tailor judicial processes to suit the challenges associated with their competitions.
'We believe Super Rugby has unique challenges across six territories and 15 time zones and the enhanced judicial process will deliver a more streamlined and effective system for teams, and a more consistent outcome for players and fans to identify with.'
The four changes to the the judicial rules are:
– Permitting an incident to be referred back to the citing commissioner for review where new evidence becomes available outside the existing allowable time frame for determination.
– The introduction of a three-person foul play review committee.
– The inclusion of the regular season bye rounds in any sanction.
– The ability of judicial committees to issue a warning for foul play offences that in their opinion do to quite meet the 'red card' threshold.
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