When studying the 2025 rules changes last year, who else ran out of steam before getting to Appendix R?
The 15 day time periods for Appellants to send in appeals (RRS R2.1(a)) and for parties and protest committees to provide comments on appeals or other documents (RRS R4.1) have been reduced to 7 days.
A new preamble has been added to Appendix R requiring time periods to be extended when there is good reason to do so.
The reasons are shown in Submission 033-22.
The timings in appendix R have not changed for many years but electronic communication has significantly improved the speed of document transmission and reducing these times will make a significant difference to the timing of issuing appeal decisions.
The change to the preamble ensures time periods can be extended when necessary.
This is a pretty significant change.
- It may reduce the number of valid appeals (or make some appeals less well presented), and
- It will require protest committees to work significantly more quickly in responding to appeals.
If you were in Canada, we had a prescription that changed this in the previous rule book from the 15 days to 7days. We did not notice any significant change in the number of appeals filed that were late. In fact, if you actual study the time duration of an appeal, the majority of the duration is the appeals panel / committee rendering a decision.
Robert
The Submissions actually came from Australian Sailing. I don't know if they were aware of what you were doing or not.