Hi Illia,

Thanks for your email. Family members of the jury members are definitely a tricky terrain. If your rules stated that family members of jury members cannot take part, I think it is totally valid to disqualify these images. 

So first of all: yes, of course national rules can be more elaborate than the international rules. This is quite common actually - for example, several chapter give out 'Special Awards' or take other national issues in consideration. Conflict of Interest is one of these. 

Secondly, what qualifies as a family member, is a cultural question - this is something you should probably consider in the Ukrainian context. I personally definitely would consider it a family member, but I'm not very Ukrainian. It becomes more tricky with nephews etc. 

Thirdly you ask if the organizing committee can overrule the jury - now this is a really tricky one. Again there is some cultural background here probably. I'm used to a situation where the jury is considered the neutral body to make final decisions regarding prizes, and nobody would come up with an idea to overrule the jury, unless there are legal reasons or rules that require that. But in another country, it might very well be common to let the jury only be responsible for ranking, and then the organizers make the formal decision. This is something that is probably to be determined by your rules. 

I hope this helps. 

Best,

Lodewijk

2013/11/1 Ilya Korniyko <intracer@gmail.com>

Hi, Ukrainian organizing committe has trouble with one winner.

In 2012 the chapter board set rules for Ukrainian part of the competition, which contains a point that organizing committe members, jury and their family members (I don't know how to translate precisely, and the correct word matters here) cannot take part in the competition. According to our rules places are determined by jury but organizing committee can disqualify works.

This year we found out only after final jury round that second place is authored by one of jury member's father an his wife. While we have no direct objections that this choice was unfair or biased, we thougth that it would be difficult to understand by other people and may harm the contest reputation. We decided not give the prize from the chapter but to present this photo among 10 best to international competition and say that it was seconf by jury decision but authors were not given prizes due to violation of the rules as the organizing committe decided.

Now the authors of this photo ask us questions

1) There is no prohibition in the international rules for jury members' family. Does our chapter have a right to add additional criterias?

2) Can a father be qualified as a family member? Is this a good criteria?

3) Is this ok for organizing committee to override jury decision in this case?

Oranizing committe, the winner and jury member in question are in copy.

Thank you,

Illia