International Sports Court
| Tribunal Arbitral du Sport Court of Arbitration for Sport TAS / CAS |
|
|---|---|
| English name | Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) |
| French name | Tribunal Arbitral du Sport (TAS) |
| Seat of the organs |
Lausanne , Switzerland
|
| Chair |
 John Coates(President of the International Tribunal for Sports) |
| Official and working languages | |
| founding |
1984 |
| tas-cas.org | |
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS, französsich ) and Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS, English literally), roughly Court of Arbitration of Sport , in colloquial German Court of Arbitration for Sport called, is an independent international arbitration tribunal based in the Swiss Lausanne , in 1984 was set up by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and is the final decision-making body with the highest sports jurisdiction for the sports associations and National Olympic Committees in disputes relating to international sports law. As a result of a ruling by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court in 1994, the TAS / CAS was subordinated to the Conseil International de l'Arbitrage en matière de Sport (CIAS, French) and International Council of Arbitration for Sport (ICAS, English) foundation , which since then decides on the administration, financing and the selection of the arbitrators in order to make the TAS / CAS independent of the IOC. In 2012, the TAS / CAS had over 300 judges from 87 nations.
The tasks of the arbitral tribunal include, for example, the clarification of disciplinary questions (in the event of uncertainties about rule violations), procedural questions (such as player transfers), doping questions and sport-related contractual questions ( sponsorship , television rights etc.) For the duration of certain major sporting events, such as the Olympic Games or Commonwealth Games, the court has been setting up non- permanent tribunals since 1996, which are intended to ensure rapid, preliminary processing and settlement of disputes that arise during the competitions. These questions mostly concern the admissibility of individual complaints or complaints from a national association, in the opinion of which another nation or its members have violated the applicable competition rules.
The first and only president until his death in 2007 was the Senegalese Kéba Mbaye . On April 3, 2008, the Italian Mino Auletta was elected President, who after Mbaye's death already held the provisional presidency. His term of office ended at the end of 2010. He is succeeded by the Australian John Coates , previous Vice President of the TAS / CAS. He took office on January 1, 2011.
TAS is usually used as an abbreviation in German-speaking Switzerland, while CAS is used in Germany.
history
The foundation goes back to an idea of the then IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch , who proposed the creation of a sports jurisdiction in 1981. The main reasons for this were the increasing professionalization of sport in the early 1980s , which also brought with it an increase in sport-specific arbitration issues to be resolved. Since sporting decisions are also made on an international level, the authority to be created also had to be given international status.
The statutes were ratified in 1983 and came into force on June 30, 1984. When it was founded, the TAS / CAS consisted of 60 members, initially appointed exclusively by the IOC, the international associations, the National Olympic Committees and the IOC President.
The International Sports Court received its first official recognition by a supreme regional court in March 1993 by the Swiss Federal Court . This court recognized the jurisdiction and the judgment of the International Sports Court against the German rider Elmar Gundel , the disqualification after doping his horse. However, it criticized the organizational and financial influence of the IOC, as the IOC fully funded the court and had the right to change the statutes .
In 1994 the TAS / CAS was then fundamentally reformed. In order to make the Sports Court more independent, the Conseil International de l'Arbitrage en matière de Sport / International Council of Arbitration for Sport (CIAS / ICAS), a foundation under Swiss law, was established as the highest body of the TAS / CAS, which with its The ten-person board of directors now took over the management and financing of the TAS / CAS. A separate chamber for appeals was introduced in order to be able to process such cases more quickly. In addition, a new code of law for sport-specific jurisprudence came into force. In addition, the number of arbitrators was increased. In 2000 it should be 186.
In 1996 the CIAS / ICAS opened offices in Sydney and Denver (later in New York ) to facilitate access to the TAS / CAS in America and Oceania . At the Olympic Summer Games in Atlanta , non-permanent tribunals were set up for the first time to deal with arbitration issues. In 2000, in addition to the Olympic Games, such a tribunal was first introduced at the European Football Championships . In 2002, FIFA also recognized the TAS / CAS as the highest international sports court.
Problems and criticism
Special features of the case law, the competences and the legal force of the judicial decisions have in the past repeatedly contributed to the acceptance difficulties of the International Court of Sports.
The court is subject to Swiss law. Its decisions can be appealed and also overturned before the Swiss Federal Supreme Court. However, this would only be the case if there are qualified grounds for complaint, for example gross procedural errors would have to be proven to the TAS / CAS. Although the International Sports Court is the supreme sports jurisdiction in most countries, it is not recognized as the final instance by all national sports federations. This prevents equal international treatment of all athletes in sports law issues.
Judgments of the International Sports Court have basically no effect under civil or criminal law. Various athletes convicted of doping sued their rights in national ordinary courts . For example, in 2006 Danilo Hondo obtained the lifting of the doping ban imposed by the TAS / CAS at the Swiss Federal Supreme Court pending a final legal decision.
On February 26, 2014, a chamber of the Munich District Court I pronounced its judgment on Claudia Pechstein's lawsuit against the German Speed Skating Association and the International Ice Skating Union (Az. 37 O 28331/12). The judgment calls the entire system of sports jurisdiction into question: It calls the arbitration agreement made in the “athletes agreement” “ineffective” because it was “not made voluntarily by the plaintiff”. At the time of the conclusion there was a "structural imbalance"; DESG and ISU had played out "a monopoly position". The International Skating Union was being revised. On June 7, 2016, the Federal Court of Justice dismissed Pechstein's complaint as inadmissible with reference to Swiss jurisdiction. The judicial assessments in Germany thus remain highly contradictory. Pechstein now wants to go to the Federal Constitutional Court .
At the beginning of September 2018, the Brussels Court of Appeal declared the obligation contained in the statutes of, among others, the Belgian football association , UEFA and FIFA , to disputes between players, clubs and associations before the CAS / CAS in relation to the action brought by a Belgian football club against the ban on third-party ownership regulate, for unlawful and responsible for deciding on the lawsuit.
The court also came under criticism several times due to various disputed decisions.
- In 2003, the TAS / CAS rejected an application from the IAAF , the World Athletics Federation . The US Track & Field Association was supposed to reveal the name of a doping offender who won a medal in track and field for the US at the 2000 Olympics. The International Sports Court justified the decision with the legal provisions in the USA. The USATF, which did not ban athletes who tested positive before the games and did not report the offense to the world federation, would have threatened a lawsuit worth millions if the athlete's rights had been violated by being named. Furthermore, the prompt elimination of legal contradictions between the national and international regulations by the IAAF would have been neglected.
- In 2004 the decision to withdraw the gold medal from the German Olympic champions in eventing at Athens because of a rule violation caused by a mistake by the timekeeper was met with incomprehension, as this decision only punished the athletes.
- In 2005, the TAS / CAS lifted the doping ban of the confessed track cyclist Mark French , because scientific evidence would be required for a ban and a confession would not be sufficient.
- In 2006, the Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed an appeal by the DSV against by the FIS pronounced protective barrier for the cross-country skier Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle at the Winter Olympics in Turin due to too high hemoglobin value from, although the DSV could prove that the athlete due genetically shows a borderline value, which increases with a long stay at high altitude.
literature
- Lorenzo Casini: The Making of a Lex Sportiva by the Court of Arbitration for Sport . In: German Law Journal 12 (2011) pp. 1317-1340. ( PDF ).
- Maurício Ferrão Pereira Borges: Association jurisdiction and arbitration in international professional football. Taking into account the internal FIFA case law in relation to the lex sportiva . Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 2009, ISBN 978-3-631-59015-7 .
- Karsten Hofmann: The need for an institutional sports arbitration tribunal in Germany. An investigation of the national sports jurisdiction with special consideration of §§ 1025 ff. ZPO . Publishing house Dr. Kovac, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-8300-4510-6 .
Web links
- Official website of the Tribunal Arbitral du Sport (French and English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Australian Coates new CAS President in: Zeit Online from November 16, 2010
- ↑ NADA: The Court of Arbitration (CAS) (PDF; 21 kB)
- ↑ Sportgericht.de: FIFA recognizes CAS as the highest court ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Sportgericht.de: Thomas Bach calls for reform of the national and international sports court system ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Sportgericht.de: Hondo doping case - Swiss court overturns CAS judgment ( page can no longer be accessed , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ sueddeutsche.de: Nine minutes that could change sport
- ↑ heute.de: Pechstein fails at the BGH ( Memento from June 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ CAS construct questioned: explosive judgment for the International Sports Court . Augsburger Allgemeine, September 4, 2018.
- ↑ Sportgericht.de: Bach worried about the flood of protests to the CAS ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Sportgericht.de: American doping offenders remain undetected ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Sportgericht.de: Objection to German team Olympic victory before CAS ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Sportgericht.de: Olympic Games Athens: Gold medals subsequently revoked - Statement by the German Equestrian Association ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Sportgericht.de: CAS approves the doping-banned train driver French ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Sportgericht.de: CAS confirms protective barrier for Evi Sachsenbacher - NOK president wants to investigate hemoglobin problem more closely ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Sportgericht.de: Sachsenbacher-Stehle reveals blood values ( page can no longer be accessed , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
