By Calvin Gnech, Legal Practice Director, Gnech and Associates
29 August 2025
About the Author:
This legal article is authored by Calvin Gnech, the Legal Practice Director at Gnech and Associates Lawyers. Calvin holds positions as the Chairperson of the Queensland Law Society (QLS) Disciplinary Law Committee and is a member of the QLS Ethics Committee. Additionally, he serves as an appointed QLS Senior Ethics Counsellor. With 25 years of experience in the legal field, Calvin is a recognised expert in disciplinary law. His expertise is evident in his insightful analysis and commentary on the complexities of the National Rugby League’s disciplinary process.
The Unfairness of the NRL Judiciary Process
This week, the National Rugby League’s (NRL) judicial process has once again been thrust into the spotlight, following the suspension of Harry Grant for two weeks—ruling him out for the remainder of the regular season. The current NRL disciplinary framework places players in a precarious position: if a player elects to contest the charge or the grading of a charge and is unsuccessful, the resulting penalty may extend into the final’s series or other important fixture, as would have been the case for Grant if he contested the charge unsuccessfully. This raises a fundamental question of fairness—should a player be subjected to a harsher penalty merely for exercising their right to contest a charge or a grading?
A robust judiciary process is crucial for safeguarding the reputation of any professional sport. The seriousness of the conduct under review and the player’s prior history are key considerations in determining the appropriate penalty for proven conduct. However, NRL players often find themselves in a challenging and unenviable position when facing disciplinary charges under the NRL Judiciary process.
The NRL’s judiciary system, as it stands, incentivises early pleas by offering reduced penalties to those who admit guilt, while imposing the risk of more severe sanctions on those who seek to challenge the charge or grading. This approach, while administratively convenient, undermines the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair hearing. It compels players to weigh the risk of an aggravated penalty against the principle of defending their reputation and integrity, even in circumstances where they may genuinely believe they are not at fault.
These types of principles find their origins from the criminal law process, where defendants may plead guilty to avoid harsher penalties. Even within the criminal jurisdiction, where the purpose of the system is to punish, these principles face significant criticism due to the induced and unfair outcomes they produce. It would be improper for any professional disciplinary system to draw or continue to draw comparisons with the criminal justice system. The objectives and underlying purposes of each system are fundamentally distinct and should not be conflated.
The imposition of harsher penalties for contesting a disciplinary charge introduces unwarranted incentives for procedural manipulation. Disciplinary tribunals consistently decline to apply criminal law principles within disciplinary proceedings, thereby underscoring the necessity for the adoption of contemporary practices within the NRL disciplinary framework.
Players facing judiciary proceedings should not feel compelled to plead guilty, especially if they believe they are innocent, solely to receive a reduced penalty. This compromises the integrity of the system. Such incentives not only distort the purpose of disciplinary and judiciary proceedings but also erode the trust of players, fans, and the general public in the sport’s governing bodies.
Unlike the criminal justice system, issues such as protecting witnesses from trauma and saving taxpayer money are not paramount. These criminal law principles should not apply or even be considered within the judiciary process of the multi-million-dollar NRL industry. There is no need to protect witnesses from the process in NRL judiciary proceedings. Players providing witness evidence about an event on a football field would rarely be described as traumatic, unlike victims giving evidence about violent or sex-related criminal offences before a criminal court.
From a resource perspective, the number of players cited over a weekend is relatively small, perhaps five- seven at most during a hectic week of football. Even if this number increased to 10-15, would that be a problem for the sake of fairness? The NRL should not prioritise the relatively minor expenses of conducting football disciplinary hearings over the integrity and fairness of the judiciary process. Engaging a few ex-players and ex-referees to hear cases for a few hours on a Tuesday or Wednesday evening would not strain the NRL budget to the extent that warrants the current compromised judiciary system to continue.
If the NRL is concerned about the cost of conducting judiciary hearings, instead of unfairly threatening players with harsher penalties for contesting charges, a potential and sensible solution would be that if a player contests a charge unsuccessfully, the club could bear the costs of convening the hearing. This would alleviate any financial concerns the NRL may have for itself.
In a previous case, also involving Harry Grant, in 2024, the Melbourne Storm was offered a $1000 fine for a dangerous contact charge if he pleaded guilty, with the risk of an increased fine if he lost his case at the judiciary. Grant’s decision to contest the charge was seen as a stand against the system, despite the potential for a harsher penalty. Although the immediate stakes were not high in that case, given the consequences if he lost his hearing before the judiciary was simply an increased fine, pleading guilty would have resulted in an entry on his record, aggravating any future conduct he was found guilty of. Grant was successful and found not guilty by the judiciary on that occasion. This week, with a final’s appearance in jeopardy no such risk was taken.
Pleading guilty, regardless of the immediate consequence, almost always has future implications and should not be taken lightly. Strategically pleading guilty before the judiciary leads to unjust outcomes in the future, as a player’s disciplinary history becomes unnecessarily crowded with prior entries, resulting in harsher penalties for different matters at a later time that perhaps on its own did not warrant such an outcome. This accumulation of charges can paint an inaccurate picture of a player’s conduct, leading to a cycle of escalating penalties that do not accurately reflect the individual event being assessed at the time as well as the player’s reputation, or career.
One of the fundamental principles of justice is the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. In the context of NRL disciplinary proceedings, this principle is compromised. Players are essentially guilty once a charge is laid until proven innocent and feel pressured to plead guilty under this regime, even if they believe they are not at fault.
The NRL’s Judiciary proceedings are a critical aspect of maintaining the integrity of the sport from both a player and fan perspective. However, simply stated, no player should be threatened or in fear of receiving a harsher penalty just because they have decided to exercise their right to plead not guilty and contest the charge or grading. The unfairness of the system just compounds upon itself over time.
As the controversy surrounding the NRL judiciary system continues to mount year by year the question needs to be asked, is it time for reform? As a frustrated fan and lawyer, I say ‘yes.’
