Official CS Complaints procedure questions?

[Andy Howie]

I have a few (a lot!) of questions...hopefully someone will have the time, knowledge and forebearance to answer them


...If someone were to lodge an official complaint (let's say, for example, about decisions pertaining to a recent Richardson Cup match) who would deal with this within CS? The Standards Committee? An arbiters committee? Someone else?

Depends on the nature of the complaint. Some go to Standards Committee, some to Arbiters Committee, some will be dealt with by the person running the tournament, some by the Directors and some by Hamish and I

-Would the complaint be made 'public' or would it be kept internal?

Again, it depends on the nature of the complaint. Not all complaints can be made public hence the Standards Committee (quite correctly) don't publish the minutes of their complaint deliberations.

-Would the other team involved be told exactly what the complaint was even if the complaint wasn't specifically against them?

Are we talking about a specific complaint or generally here. If the complaint is not against a team then why would they be told. Could be I am misunderstanding the question? I would imagine that in general the answer would be yes but I can see exceptions to this.

-Would the other team have to comply with any questions asked of them pertaining to the complaint if they weren't told what the complaint was?

I think it would be in the teams best interests to reply to questions pertaining to a complaint.

-Would there be any way of annulling/reversing/or in some other way re-determining the result of the match in question if a decision was reached upholding the complaint?

Hard to comment on without the specifics. Lets say that there is a match and it is discovered that there has been some cheating by using outside assistance as the French did one team tournament. Then yes there would be. Normally when a panel is set up, they will give the recommendations for what is to happen next.

-Does anyone have a copy of (last week's?) Scotland on Sunday column by Dougie Bryson? Apparently the column mentioned the match/complaint?!

Sorry I don't, depending on the date I was either out of the country or about to go out of the country. I hope this is what you were looking for