Hard cases make bad law.
The above maxim is one of very few I remember from three years ‘studying’ Jurisprudence when I was less than half the age I am now – the law’s gain was racing journalism’s loss – but it has direct relevance to the Christophe Soumillon case. Squinting back to the boozy haze of my student days, I can just about make out the late Lord Denning, who was Master Of The Rolls in the Court of Appeal.
Not only did Denning have a voice that made him a soundalike for George, the affable pink hippo from Rainbow, but he had an instinctive sympathy for the underdog. This – the instinctive sympathy, not the voice that sounded like George from Rainbow – made Denning a good man but a bad lawyer.
Every time an old lady had defaulted on her mortgage payments, Denning would contort the law to grant her a few months’ grace, with the result the lender couldn’t kick her out.
When the case went up to the House of Lords, harsh reality came to bear. Their Lordships saw that, if you applied Denning’s well-meaning but fudged reasoning, the mortgage brokers would all go bust and economic mayhem would ensue. According to the law, there wasn’t a period of grace in the old girl’s contract, and so she ended up on the street.
Denning wanted the ‘right’ result – but that’s not how the law works. So, to Soumillon.
Was it ‘right’ that the Belgian, having elbowed Rossa Ryan from the saddle at Saint-Cloud on Friday, was free to ride Vadeni in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe? Surely, his punishment could have started straight away - and racing released from the threat of more bad publicity?
Here, after all, was a man whose idiotic actions could have maimed, or worse, a fellow jockey and his presence – said many – in the field for Europe’s middle-distance championship served to leave an unsightly stain on the race, and the sport overall.
On Saturday, France Galop boss Olivier Delloye did little to disguise the sentiment that he’d happily have dispatched Soumillon to Mars for Arc weekend, and spoke of changing the rules so that suspensions could start straight away. There was, believe it or not, a hue and cry on social media for Soumillon to be cast out forthwith.
I’m not going to make any comment on whether the punishment fitted the crime. Here was an instance of dangerous riding – although, privately, Ryan may feel that he could and should have stayed on board his mount – and the transgression will cost its perpetrator dear.
And I’ll also leave for another day the debate as to whether the Arc should be treated differently to any other Sunday in French racing, when the feature event is, say, a Group 3 at Maisons-Laffitte. Even if you believe the 60 days handed down by the Saint-Cloud stewards was a trifle and that the correct penalty for Soumillon was a meeting with Madame Guillotine herself, what you can’t deny him is a right of appeal before the sentence takes effect.
The option to contest a judicial ruling is one of the foundation stones of any legal system, and it applies to the workplace – and a person’s right to earn a living – just as it does to the criminal law. Let’s imagine that French racing’s governing body had indeed taken Soumillon off his mounts and that Vadeni had gone on to win the Arc by six lengths.
It then transpires that the jockey’s legal team, while not disputing the facts of the case, learn that the process of the inquiry was flawed.
Technically, one of the stewards was listed as having retired from duty a week earlier. He wasn’t qualified to sit on the panel, so the officials’ decision could not stand.
Soumillon, robbed of the appellate procedure, has been unlawfully denied the opportunity to win a horserace offering a first prize of nearly £2.5million. Soumillon’s advocates, adamant that their man is now the victim, seek compensation for his loss of earnings.
All of a sudden, things have got very tricky for France Galop. Delloye and France Galop can tinker with their rules for the future – they could shorten the period Soumillon or his ilk has to consider their options – but the right of appeal must stand.
The ‘optics’ might not look good and, if Vadeni had overhauled Alpinista in the Arc’s final throes, racing would have had some explaining to do. But better that than the alternative that turns one of the fundamental principles of any legal system worth having on its head.
Hard cases make bad law.
