Regarding: Ethics and Accountability in Judging. Associations whose judges show a pattern of misconduct should be put on probation, with all that associations' judges required to undergo retraining, including ethics training, before any of the associations' judges are permitted to judge another ISU event.
Perhaps, the above slap on the wrist for Associations is reasonable.
However, being a relative newcomer to the "sport" of Figure Skating, I would propose that if a judge engages in major misconduct an during international event then their Association be banned from sending judges to international events for 5 years. If a judge engages in minor misconduct during an international event, I propose that their Association be banned from sending judges to international events for 1 year.
I believe that banning Associations from sending judges to international events is required to put "teeth" in the ethics rules. My current perception is that if a country has a cheating judge banned after one event then the country can send another cheating judge to the next event. If figure skating at the next Olympics is judged entirely by third-world countries then that is fine with me.
By analogy, societies tend to have less crime where the entire family is responsible for one member's crimes.
Also, psychology test after psychology test have shown that people are more likely to behave illegally or immorally when secrecy is expected.
Nice website!
Alan Sheldon
Copyright 2003 by George S. Rossano