If a man stopped me in the street and demanded of me my watch, I should refuse to give it to him. If he threatened to take it by force I should, though not a fighting man, do my best to protect it. If on the other hand he should assert his intention of trying to obtain it by means of an action in any court of law, I should take it out and hand it to him, and think I had got off cheaply.On Gaelic Games

Victorian humorist Jerome K Jerome's reservations about litigation spring to mind in the light of reactions to early decisions of the GAA's new independent arbitration forum, the Disputes Resolution Authority.

Contrary to some of the theories floating around, the DRA isn't a further layer of bureaucracy within the GAA, which in its futile attempts to keep lawyers' snouts out of the Croke Park trough has ended up as a Trojan horse from which m'learned friends emerge on a now weekly basis.

The DRA was established to stop members and units haring off to the High Court in search of interlocutory injunctions. In that it has succeeded.

In the cases of Mark Vaughan and Ryan McMenamin, the authority provided a legal opinion on the appeals and defused the matters.

It could be pointed out that in both cases - and potentially still in Vaughan's - the matter could have ended up in court had the player's team not got what they had wanted.

Neither is the DRA any guarantee that there won't be recourse to the courts in answer to its decisions, because the right to do so is protected by the constitution, but the fact of its existence and independence means that it will be harder to get injunctions than in the past.

If there are legal flaws in the official guide and the procedures of the GAA it is better to know about them in-house rather than have the deficiency laid bare, and at some expense, in the courts.

Every time the DRA grants an appeal some light should be shone into a dark corner of the GAA's sometimes-chaotic procedures and the illumination helps improve the situation.

So far so good. But for those enthusiastic about the concept of the DRA, last week's decision to allow the Ryan McMenamin appeal was puzzling to say the least.

It has been a very important part of the GAA's disciplinary policy that the inadequate decisions of referees in this area be reviewed. With so much unpunished or inadequately punished foul play, the intervention of the committees - whether the old GAC or the current CDC - has been necessary if not exactly ideal.

Ironically it was the 2000-03 GAC of Páraic Duffy, whose disciplinary sub-committee report played a vital role in last week's DRA decision, which began this process of over-ruling yellow cards where red-card offences had been committed.

In this it was strengthened by the decision of Central Council three years ago to the day to make a ruling in support of such interventions.

We can skip over some procedural points, although it's worth noting that it was hardly desirable for a panel whose members, Hugh O'Flaherty, Aaron Shearer and Declan Hallissey, had links to Dublin clubs to hear an appeal with that county so closely involved. Naturally, they wouldn't have been swayed by such affiliations, but the optics would hardly have played well back in Tyrone had the suspension stood.

Let's look instead at the substance of the decision. The DRA decided to overlook the 2002 Central Council ruling and concentrate on the recommendations of the Sub-committee on Disciplinary Rules and Procedures under the chairmanship of Páraic Duffy.

In identifying the heart of the matter the DRA judgement stated: "The central question is: Can video evidence be used to substitute a red card offence for one that the referee thought had merited a yellow card only?" The DRC (the DRA panel hearing the appeal) answered this by moving straight to a consideration of Duffy's report and found that it didn't set out clearly enough the power to review yellow cards.

Finding ambiguity in this, the panel decided that the CDC didn't have the explicit authority to act as it had done in the McMenamin case.

In answer it can firstly be asked why would Duffy have referred explicitly to a power that had already been granted when Central Council accepted the principle of intervention in August 2002? Secondly, the Disputes Resolution Code under which the DRA operates states at article 1.3: The rules of the Gaelic Athletic Association (including bye-laws, regulations, and interpretations of rules by Central Council applicable to the decision, the subject matter of the dispute (the rules) and the laws of Ireland shall govern and be applied to any issue between the disputing parties.

In other words, by what authority did the DRA consider a discussion document such as Duffy's sub-committee report - let alone reach a decision on its basis - in allowing the appeal? Even on its own terms the panel's reasoning is questionable.

The ambiguity it finds in Duffy's report is based on subsection 2 of Operational Principles: (2) A Committee or Council in Charge or Investigating Committee may use video evidence to formulate and prefer charges in relation to alleged offences not contained in a referee's report.

Commenting on this the decision stated: "But there was reference to an offence in the referee's report in this case: the referee deemed that it merited only a yellow card, not a red card." This clearly confuses the action of the player with the alleged offence. The action might have been the same, but what offence was constituted by that action is not.

The rulebook is very clear that rough play is a different alleged offence to dangerous play (McMenamin dropped knees-first on to John McEntee's chest/neck).

Every player is entitled to use the appeals process to his advantage and the McMenamin case is now done and dusted. But it doesn't change the fact that from an objective, neutral perspective he deserved the suspension and wouldn't have had it initially imposed but for the intervention of the CDC.

That power of intervention is now itself effectively suspended. Although the remedy mightn't actually require a change of rule, that is the best solution and it is welcome that the matter is now likely to be up for discussion at next year's congress.

In the meantime, it's a bit alarming that the DRA appears to have got such an important issue so badly wrong.

smoran@irish-times.ie