The whereabouts rule obliges athletes to report where they are for doping tests. The European Court of Human Rights has now ruled on it.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled on January 18, 2017 that the arrangement regarding whereabouts is not in conflict with the European Convention on Human Rights.
In particular, the Court found that there was no violation of Article 8 of the ECHR, which concerns the right to respect for private and family life.
In particular, this case examined to what extent the obligation for a specific group of professional athletes to communicate their whereabouts for the purpose of carrying out unannounced doping controls was justified.
The Court recognised that the whereabouts regulation has an impact on the private lives of athletes, but ruled that the public interest that makes doping controls necessary justifies this restriction.
For example, the Court first established that the abolition of the wereabouts regulation could lead to an increase in the possible negative consequences that doping can have on the health of athletes.
Secondly, the Court ruled that abolition of this regulation would also be contrary to the European and international consensus on the need for unannounced doping controls.
The whereabouts scheme requires athletes subject to it to provide precise information about their whereabouts and daily activities to a public authority in order to enable unannounced doping controls.
One of the athletes who initiated the relevant procedure that led to this ruling is the French rider Jeannie Longo.
This decision appears to be a huge boost for WADA and could be a milestone in the fight against doping. The whereabouts arrangement was (and is) subject to much criticism.
It is not clear whether this means a free pass for the current whereabouts arrangement. After all, the complaint that led to the current judgment of the ECtHR dates from 2011. The whereabouts regulation is now much stricter and more drastic than the regulation in 2011.
What the whereabouts rule requires
Athletes in a registered testing pool have to state in advance where they can be found. The information is filed per quarter and updated whenever plans change: an address for the night, the training locations and the competition calendar, together with a daily time slot during which the athlete is available at a stated place. The point of the system is that out-of-competition testing has to be unannounced to be worth anything.
Failures come in two forms. A filing failure occurs where the information is missing, incomplete or wrong. A missed test occurs where the athlete is not at the stated place during the stated slot. A defined number of such failures within a rolling twelve-month period counts as an anti-doping rule violation in its own right, with a sanction attached, even though no prohibited substance was ever found.
Why the interference is accepted
The system interferes with private life, and that is not in dispute. The question is whether the interference is justified. The reasoning that has been accepted runs as follows: the obligation applies to a limited group of elite athletes who have chosen to compete at that level, it pursues the protection of health and of fair competition, the information gathered stays restricted to what testing requires, and no less intrusive method reaches the same result. On that basis the interference is regarded as proportionate.
What an athlete should organise
Treat the filing as an administrative duty with a deadline, not as a formality. Update it the moment travel or training changes, and keep proof that you did. Choose a time slot you can actually guarantee, and name a place where you can really be reached, which is rarely a training hall. Where a failure is recorded, ask at once for the documentation behind it, because a failure can be contested and the period to do so is short. Separate incidents that each looked minor at the time are what usually produce the case.
The official press release can be found at the following link: https://t.co/lekirhvYY6