[caissa]

Bob refers in another thread to the PABF's Zonal law elections.

PABF zonal law elections

Law 80A states that

1. The Regulating Authority under these laws is
a) for its own world tournaments and events the World Bridge
Federation.
b) the respective Zonal Authority for tournaments and events held under
its auspices.
c) for any other tournament or event the National Bridge Organization
in whose territory the tournament takes place.

So, the column "delegation to NBOs" is puzzling to me. Am I right that the Zonal Authority (e.g. PABF, ACBL, EBL) is the RA only for tournaments it organises, and has no powers over tournaments held by the NBOs, in so far as the RA options in the laws are concerned ?

The document itself is also puzzling:

a) it seems to adopt both L12C1 c) and L12C1(e), which are mutually exclusive options

b) Law 40B1 "Zone 6 does not designate these (Special partnership understandings) for PABF events." - that means the PABF conventions policy is that they are not regulating any conventions at all ?

Comments please ?

[blackshoe]

I agree wrt 12C1{c} and {e}.

40B1{b} says that all artificial calls and "conventions" (a term now undefined in the laws) are "special partnership understandings", so when PABF says they aren't designating any such under 40B1{a}, they're talking about natural (ie, not artificial and not conventional) calls.

In the 1997 Laws, some elections were in the purview of Zonal Authorities, and some in the purview of sponsoring organizations (for which the equivalent in the current laws seems to be the tournament organizer). In the 2007 Laws, it appears that all elections are RA elections. It is thus correct, I think, that a ZA cannot tell a subordinate RA (e.g., an NBO) which elections to make. That doesn't seem to have stopped them from doing it. OTOH, one could argue that if the ZA issues masterpoints (e.g., the ACBL) then any contest (including club games) which gives that ZA's masterpoints out falls under 80A1{b}, and the ZA is the RA for that game. I don't know if the PABF (or, for that matter, anyplace other than the ACBL) is in that situation.

Law 80A3 says

Quote

the regulating Authority may delegate its powers (retaining ultimate responsibility for their exercise) or it may assign them (in which case it has no further responsibility for their exercise).

I've understood this to mean delegation or assignment to Tournament Organizers (see Law 80B) but I could be wrong.

Bottom line, IMO, is that the PABF statement that all of zone 6 must comply with the PABF's election in the case, for example, of Law 20G2, is illegal. The way the law is written, NBOs are the RAs for events which are not WBF tournaments or event, or those held "under the auspices" (whatever that means)* of the ZA. The NBOs are not subordinate to the ZAs in this regard.

My opinion notwithstanding, of course, the ZAs will do whatever they damn well please. And no one will tell them they can't.

*Added: my dictionary says that "under the auspices of" means "with the help, support, or protection of".

[geller]

In the case of the ACBL the ZA is also the RA, so this is a special case. In the case of Zone 6 the situation is different. The JCBL (Japan Contract Bridge League) regulations allow players to reserve their rights to call the director at the end of the hand in the event of a hesitation. I wasn't aware that the PABF regulations stated that they were denying the various national assns the right to regulate this matter, which, as correctly noted above, they do not actually have the power to do. Hopefully the apparently inappropriate PABF regulation can be corrected. but as far as I know it hasn't had any practical effect on the national assns.

-Bob