Strict liability for sports doping
(A comparative study between the anti-doping legislations and civil law)
The absence of a uniform legal definition of doping constituted a problem to those who in charge of its controlling. This had been till the international efforts succeeded in adopting the Global World Anti-Doping Code Review which developed harmonized and uniform rules concerning the definition of doping and adopted the principle of strict liability requiring the responsibility of the athletic person as soon as the presence of any prohibited substance or its elements inside his body, regardless of fault or negligence, or intent. With regard to the burden of proof, it is enough that the sports organization proves the existence of banned substance within the body of the athlete. Hence, the burden of proof will transfer to this athlete who has to prove how this substance entered his body.
The World Anti-Doping Code Review provides for the imposition of sport sanctions which have quasi-criminal nature, in the context of some of the rules of civil law and the law of evidence, such as ineligibility; exclusion of individual results, retrieval of medals and awards; the provisional suspension, and fines. These options require the application of mixed legal rules by the Criminal law, civil law and the law of evidence at once. Despite the provisions of the World Anti-Doping Code Review does not prevent the injured person to claim compensation for damages caused by the doping of sports, but they ignored its regulation by private rules. This raises a lot of problems concerning the adequacy of the application of the general rules of civil liability.
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