ASADA boss warns punishments handed out during Essendon drug scandal can’t be overturned

THE outgoing boss of ASADA has warned those pushing for a fresh inquiry into the long-running Essendon drug scandal cannot overturn punishments already dished out.

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OUTGOING anti-doping boss Ben McDevitt warned those pushing for a fresh inquiry into the long-running Essendon scandal cannot overturn punishments already dished out.

The ASADA chief executive, at his final Senate estimates appearance on Wednesday night, said he stood by every decision he’d made since his appointment in 2014.

Mr McDevitt, who will leave his post in May, oversaw the body’s prosecution of antidoping charges against 34 Essendon players after a joint ASADA-AFL investigation, which rubbed them out of the 2016 season and plunged the Bombers into crisis.

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Outgoing ASADA chief executive Ben McDevitt. Picture: Ray Strange

ASADA BOSS BEN MCDEVITT’S FULL SENATE ESTIMATES STATEMENT

A “Justice for the 34” campaign is seeking to have the players’ guilty verdict, delivered in the Court of Arbitration for Sport, overturned.

Mr McDevitt said a Senate inquiry could not set aside the rulings of either the finding of lawfulness of ASADA’s actions by the full bench of the Federal Court, nor of the findings of doping violations against Essendon players by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

“So far as antidoping matters can be litigated, either on merit or process, the Essendon matters have been finalised,” Mr McDevitt said.

“Aspects of this case have been forensically examined by bodies including, but not limited to, the independent Anti-Doping Rule Violation Panel, the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal, the Victorian Supreme Court, the Federal Court of Australia by both single Judge and then via Full Bench, the Court of Arbitration for Sport and even the Swiss Federal Court.”

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Mr McDevitt said the Essendon saga had been dominated by “confused onlookers” who mixed up sports law for criminal law.

He said Australia’s response to doping in sport was not governed by the criminal law.

“My job as the anti-doping regulator ... (is) to pursue allegations of possible breaches of Australia’s anti-doping rules,” he said.

“At the risk of over-simplification, sports law is essentially based on a process of arbitration and contracts.”

A group supporting the suspended Essendon players, Justice for the 34, said contrary to Mr McDevitt’s assertions it was not trying to overturn the Court of Abitration for Sport decision.

A group spokesman said the group’s objectives included a review of the anti-doping framework like the reviews now being conducted by the UK Parliament and the US Senate.

The group also wants the ASADA Act which it says is now more than 10 years old and has never been formally reviewed by Parliament, to be reviewed.

The rights of athletes under the ASADA Act should also be looked at to ensure they are consistent with the rights of other citizens, the group said.

“If the UK and US can review their anti-doping legislation in a parliamentary inquiry, why can’t Australia?,” the group spokesman said.