Classification Of Laws Regulating The Sporting Environment
There are three types of laws and all three apply to the sporting environment.
The first type of law is the Statutory Law; this refers to everyone, coaches, teachers, managers, pupils. If someone does not follow these laws they will face charges. It ensures that health and safety is kept everywhere safely and properly. It covers the legal side of legalisation for example to ensure that everyone is actually following the health and safety at work act and not just doing what they want. The main sanctions of a criminal court are fines and/or imprisonment. The sanctions are intended as a punishment; to deter and reform. They are not intended as a means of compensating an injured party. In relation to a sporting environment in a sport center that has a swimming pool, will need to ensure the health and safety work act is followed and chlorine levels are maintained and the pool is not putting anyone at danger. The statutory law is put in place so that everyone at the sports center follows the health and safety work act, if this is not followed they may face being put on trial for not following the legal laws and putting other people at risk.
The second type of law is a Case Law; this is a law that is created by a judge based around previous laws and also based around interpretations of a chosen case. When the judge makes a decision, a successive law is created to prevent the ‘case’ from becoming a problem. This relates to health and safety in many ways the health and safety states that organisations must provide health and safety policies and assess risks to anyone who could be affected and many other aspects in health and safety. An example of this in the sporting industry would be at a sport center containing trampolines and the room is too low meaning it could affect the health and safety of the participant because due to the ceiling being so low, when they bounce they may hit the ceiling and get badly injured. Then the judge would look at previous laws and interpretations and make a decision if there will be a law put in place for the average height of the ceiling when participating on a trampoline, this will stop major injures.
The third type of law is a Civil Law; this is a civil action that is brought in by individuals and is heard in county courts. It is used to seek remedies beneficial to the individual damages often in the form of financial compensation. Civil laws are written and arranged due to situations in the past. A civil law is put into place by civilians as they want to prevent something from happening again; there are civil affairs between citizens that allow the civil laws to be set. In relation to a sporting environment - Trampolines are not allowed to be left unattended so that no pupil/participant can get hurt if they get on the trampoline. This is a civil law because of the incident in 1980 where a pupil used an unattended trampoline in an unlocked sports hall and fell off and became paralysed, this is now a civil law due to the accident that happened in 1980.
