Different requirements, burdens and standards? Really? Seems to me that any verdict and penalties must be legally sound or they risk being successfully challenged in a court of law.
People have been banned from sport for merely acting suspiciously (eg Michael Rasmussen, Rio Ferdinand). I'm sure if such bans were not "legally sound" we'd have heard about it by now.
Of course, Rasmussen eventually admitted that he'd been up to no good, somewhat belatedly, but there was no firm evidence against him at the time.
I look forward to JB's appeal being laughed out of court.
I guess a 'sport' can take the ball away from anyone it doesn't want to play - that's how it works in most playgrounds - but if you're going to adopt the clothes of a legal process, you'd better be ready to justify your methodology - in a court of law if called to do so by those affected by your decisions. The way that both the UCI and USADA have gone about some of their business in the last few years seems to have been less than ideal, and eventually someone with balls and money will stand up and fight for a proper process. The thing is, there's no need for the process to be vulnerable to legal questioning if, as suggested elsewhere, the worldwide ban was imposed by the international governing organisation, not by a national body. If other national bodies don't ratify that ban, what strength has it?
I suggest that if you intend to use rules to deprive people of their living, it
is potentially a human rights issue, so you'd better be on legally solid ground.
