Interim Disciplinary Code Published

A new interim Disciplinary Code has been published today replacing the previous version known as the Judicial Code. 

Following his appointment earlier this year, Judicial Chair, Sir Gary Hickinbottom has taken the time to review British Wrestling’s Judicial Code and has made a number of recommendations to the British Wrestling Board in order to bring the document up to a standard that he is willing to work within whilst a broader review takes place.

The new code now called the Disciplinary Code, acts as British Wrestling’s formal complaints policy and is implemented by Sir Gary in an independent capacity. The interim Disciplinary Code is available here and always available on the policies page of the website.  

What Has Changed in the interim Disciplinary Code

Whilst it may look different to the previous Judicial Code the substantive changes are few and include: 

1. Widening the scope of people who are covered by the Code, and ensuring that all participants are bound by it (para 1). 
2. The delegation by BWA of its authority and power to investigate and enforce to the CE (para 4). 
3. Added ability to appoint a third-party investigator (para 4.2).  
4. The setting up of a single Judicial Panel from which both Judicial Tribunal and Appeal Tribunal members are drawn; and allowing the Panel to include other legal members as well as nominated members (para 5). 
5. Included the requirement for the complainant to provide a preferred outcome or similar when submitting a complaint (para 6.1). 
6. Adding the Sport Integrity option for safeguarding complaints/concerns (para 6.3). 
7. Making clear that any sanction must be proportionate and reasonable (para 9). 
8. Limiting the right of appeal (para 10.4). 

Sport Integrity

Whilst making the edits recommended by Sir Gary Hickinbottom the British Wrestling Board also took the opportunity to sign up to use the Sport Integrity. Funded by UK Sport, Sport Integrity is a three-year pilot project that has been developed to support National Governing Bodies to deliver their responsibilities for upholding conduct in their sports.

The pilot involves creating and operating an independent disclosure and investigations process for the high-performance sport system and has been in operation for 12 months previously only available to sports on full World Class Programme funding. Signing up to Sport Integrity is a condition of funding for UK Sport funded organisations as part of their Whyte Review response. British Wrestling will notify all those individuals covered by this service separately.