Competition Jury

For every sanctioned competition the organiser appoints a jury that meets the required composition for that level: typically a president plus two to four members drawn from senior umpires, federation officers, and impartial third parties. Jury authority and scope are defined in advance, recording which protest categories the jury may hear (rule interpretation, conduct, equipment) and which fall outside its remit (doping, criminal matters), routing those upstream to the disciplinary system.

During play, a team may lodge a protest within the deadline set by competition regulation. The protest enters the jury workflow with timestamp, the umpire's original decision, the disputed rule article, and supporting evidence. The jury convenes, deliberates, and records its findings. Each member's vote is logged; in the event of a tie, the president casts the deciding vote, recorded explicitly so the audit trail shows who broke the deadlock. Decisions are issued with a written reason citing the rule article applied, then published to the live competition feed and pushed to the contesting team and umpire team.

Every decision is filed into a precedent database keyed by rule article and scenario. Future juries can consult the precedent register before deliberating, reducing inconsistency across events and federations. After the competition closes, a jury report is generated covering composition, every protest heard, decisions issued, and observations on rule clarity. The report is filed with the federation and made available to the disciplinary system if any decision triggered a follow-up disciplinary case. For major events, the jury workflow integrates with video review so contested calls can be re-examined from official broadcast feeds before deliberation closes.