Judo Victoria exemption application – Nov 2015

Judo Victoria Inc. applied to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal for an exemption under section 89 of the Equal Opportunity Act 2010. The application sought to allow Judo Victoria to discriminate on the basis of age in its black belt (“Dan”) gradings policy.

Specifically, Judo Victoria wished to have clarification of the legal status of its existing grading practices, which included:

• excluding under 17 year olds from eligibility for black belt (alleged direct discrimination), and
• not recognising points for “wins” gained at competitions for older-age competitors (described in the Applicant’s materials as “veterans” or “masters” competitions for those aged 30 and above), for the purpose of awarding black belt grades (alleged indirect discrimination).

The Commission intervened in this application to make submissions about the way that the Equal Opportunity Act applies to sporting organisation and on the application and interpretation of the competitive sporting activity exception in section 72 of the Act.

In the course of the hearing, the second part of Judo Victoria’s claim was re-framed to clarify that the condition was as follows: “To progress to the 6th Dan grade one must have obtained one’s 3rd Dan grade with open contest points”. Open contest points referred to competitions which were open to all ages (that is, not veterans or masters competitions).

The Tribunal granted an exemption for Judo Victoria to exclude under 17 year olds from eligibility for black belt grading, and found that the grading condition requiring points from open competitions was reasonably imposed, and did not meet the test for indirect discrimination. No exemption was therefore necessary.

The Commission’s submissions and the Tribunal’s decision can be found below.