If you’ve been following the current Comrades saga where unelected officials seem hell bent on preventing members of the Comrades Marathon Association (CMA) from exercising their democratic rights, you will no doubt have heard reference to the ‘Domicilium Rule’. The ‘Domicilium Rule’ rule is being used as the rationale for the ‘locals only’ decree that KwaZulu Natal Athletics (KZNA) and certain members of the interim (and largely unelected) CMA Boards are pushing.
The ‘Domicilium Rule’ seems to leave interviewers in the media perplexed (which is understandable since they are not experts on the subject) but that similarly KZNA and interim CMA Board members either do not understand the rule themselves or are deceitfully and dishonestly obfuscating its proper application and enforcement should be of grave concern to the running community and public.
The Domicilium Rule is rule 5.15 in the Athletics South Africa (ASA) Technical Rules under the heading “The Eligible Athlete”. The rule is really quite simple stating, “5.15.1 For the purpose of this rule, domicile shall mean the place where an athlete is permanently resident. To avoid doubt, students and scholars residing in accommodation on, or close to the institution of learning, will declare the residence where the athlete stays for domicile purposes, and not the residence of the athlete’s parents or guardians.”
It is 100% clear, both from its heading and the wording thereof, that the rule only applies to athletes; specifically, within the context of competition (i.e. an individual’s participation in an ASA-affiliated event). Within the context of the Comrades Marathon, the Domicile Rule is applied to members of an elite or club team for the purpose of identifying the recipients of a team prize (a ‘team prize’ is awarded to a club/team comprising athletes who reside in the same province and who compete wearing full club colours). Other examples of the application of the Domicilium Rule include the identification of province-specific prize winners (e.g. first KZN athletes home) and an athlete’s selection to provincial and national teams.
The rule has 9 sub clauses (the remaining 8 are included below) which further verify that the scope and intention is only for competitive athletes.
5.15.2 An athlete shall only represent the ASA province wherein he/she is domicile.
5.15.3 Each club may only be registered in a single ASA province and shall establish an office in that province. Clubs registered in different provinces that use a similar name must include the province in their club name e.g. Road Racers WP, Road Racers KZN.
5.15.4 With the exception of a National Athlete, an athlete shall only be a member of a club registered in the ASA province where the athlete is domicile.
5.15.5 A National Athlete may join any club of his/her choice anywhere in South Africa, but he/she will only represent the ASA province where he/she is domicile.
5.15.6 No athlete may relocate from one club to another club in the same province, or from one province to another without being in possession of a written clearance certificate from his/her former club entitling him/her to change to the new club/province. Failure to obtain such a clearance certificate shall render the athlete ineligible to compete for the new club/ province.
5.15.7 A club must respond to the request of an athlete to relocate to another club within 2 weeks. Failing to do so, the athlete will automatically be cleared to register at the new club.
5.15.8 An athlete (including National and Legend Athletes) may only change from one club to another once per calendar year.
5.15.9 The new ASA Club/Province reserves the right to withhold the issue of a new licence from an athlete who has changed clubs, until the athlete produces a clearance certificate.
It is clear that the Domicilium Rule does not apply to race organisation, race organisers, board members, volunteers or anyone other than athletes who are actively participating in competitive events. It should also be pointed out that ASA’s “Rule 13: The Eligible Competition / Race Organiser” does not stipulate any residential rules for race organisers. In fact there is a definition within this section which seems to define what the CMA is and protects the rights of anyone, licensed provincial athlete or not, to actively participate in race organisation.
“Rule 13 : The Eligible Competition / Race Organiser
13.1 All events held under the auspices of ASA must be under the control of an eligible Competition/Race Organiser who must:
13.1.1 Have a specific mandate to organize a competition listed on the ASA National or Provincial Fixtures List either as a member of a club or contracted to the club or Provincial/Associate Member;”
This rule is being conveniently ignored by KZNA and interim CMA Board spokespeople because it does not suit their designs.
KZNA, under the presidency of Steve Mkasi, seem hell bent on railroading a new clause into the KZNA constitution that, “A special member shall not be required to purchase licences but must be entitled to recruit its membership from licensed athletes registered or affiliated to clubs falling within the boundaries of the province of KwaZulu-Natal.” Interpreting the CMA as a running club seems to be the basis of Mkasi’s argument.
While it is true that the Comrades Marathon was formerly hosted and organised by Collegians Harriers, a club affiliated with KZNA, this changed in 1981 upon the formation of a separate and independent body, subsequently registered as a Non-Profit Company (NPC). Nothing in the CMA constitution could be interpreted as ‘ticking the boxes’ required of an athletics club (for example, the CMA constitution does not stipulate club kit or the purchase of a KZNA licence).
Comrades is currently listed as a “Special Member” within the KZNA constitution, a term which is not defined. The KZNA efforts are likely in contempt of a High Court ruling that is currently in effect protecting the rights of all CMA members, regardless of domicile, to participate and vote in all CMA activities.
Aside: The answering affidavit that Steve Mkasi provided on behalf of KZNA to the High Court includes several untruths / outright lies and at least once instance of what appears to be apparent perjury. I am investigating this as part of a series of articles on this topic.
Under the running club membership section, The KZNA constitution merely states, “With the exception of National Athletes as defined by ASA, an athlete shall only be a member of a club when the club and athlete are both domiciled in the same ASA province (the domicilium rule).” As we’ve established, the Comrades Marathon Association is not – and has never been – a running club. To argue otherwise one would need to be of unsound mind.
It also bears emphasis that the members of the CMA are not necessarily athletes (for example, many volunteers have never participated in the event) and are not required to either belong to a running club affiliated with KZNA (or any other provincial athletics body). Therefore, what the new decree issued by KZNA attempts to do is to improperly extend its authority and influence over individuals (and the larger CMA body) who would not ordinarily be bound by its rules. The implication of the KZNA decree is that members of the CMA must also be members of an athletics club affiliated with KZNA (and thus subject to KZNA’s oversight) or they will be barred from exercising their freedom of association. This clearly violates South Africa’s constitution.
Our dubious KZNA and interim CMA Board members also like to stipulate that ‘we are a member of World Athletics (WA), our rules are derived from WA rules and we have to adhere to them’. This is an easy one to counter as there is no provincial Domicilium Rule in any WA document or rulebook.
In fact, the WA Rules do not apply at all to the Comrades Marathon given that the race is neither a standard distance (e.g. 100km) nor subject to a standard time period (e.g. a 12-hour / 24-hour race). These rules are only applied at the Comrades Marathon as a consequence of the ASA requirement that all road races in South Africa should be compliant with WA Rules. WA itself would not consider the rules to apply.
WA document C3.3 covers “Eligibility Rules’ and C3.4 “Transfer of Allegiance Regulations” which is purely on the technicalities of national representation for athletes at international competitions and there are no rules or protocols around the nationality or residence of race organisers. However, if one did want to get really technical, WA does allow for ‘Neutral Athletes’ who are allowed to compete unbound by any national affiliation (examples include Russian athletes who wished to compete as “independent” athletes during WA’s banning of the Russian Athletics Federation and refugee athletes from disputed territories). The WA athletics rules were never intended to be applied wider than for athletes but, should we need to do so, ‘Neutral Organisers’ would be an easy solution.
As it stands, being an athletics coach with American citizenship does not prohibit one from coaching British athletes. There are no WA athletics rules preventing a Kenyan citizen from being involved in the organisation of the New York Marathon. The closest that any WA document gets to the word ‘Domicilium’ is listing the Dominican Republic as one of their North American member states.
Mkasi likes to use the Soweto Marathon as an example of the Domicilium Rule being in effect and working well. In a recent Daily Maverick article, Mkasi stated, “if you are not from Soweto, you don’t have a say in the Soweto Marathon, and the same thing applies to other races”. This is incorrect as the race was formed as a private company with no residence restrictions to organisation, employees or volunteers. The current race director is Danny Blumberg who is unlikely to be a Soweto ratepayer.
Personally, I would not use Soweto as the aspirational example – the race is prone to race day issues and there have been several years where the race was cancelled due to disappearing money and squabbling amongst stakeholders. Ironically, back in 2006, ASA had to step in to rescue the Soweto Marathon and appointed Cheryl Winn as Race Director and Norrie Williamson as Technical Director of the race – both of whom were KZN residents at the time.
It would be better if Mkasi referred to examples like Cape Town Marathon (CTM), widely recognised as the best organised of South Africa’s big four marathons/ultras. CTM was formed and is run as a private company with some Western Province Athletics representation at the ExCo as a courtesy. Mkasi is also loath to comment on how his twisted interpretation of the Domicilium Rule would apply to national running events like the Spar Ladies or ABSA Run Your City series. All of these were formed post-democracy and in the ‘professional’ era.
The best comparison to Comrades is the Two Oceans which also became a major event during the isolation period. They were both formed as Non-Profit Companies (NPCs) with independent constitutions and are ‘Board driven’. The Two Oceans NPC explicitly allows members regardless of domicile.
Under the ‘Objectives’ section, the CMA constitution enshrines inclusivity, “[An objective of the CMA is to] encourage and facilitate participation in the Race and its administration through engagement and involvement, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, politics, gender or otherwise, of all persons wishing to participate, under the auspices of CMA, IAAF, ASA and KZNA, whether as athletes, officials, administrators or in any other way, and to take all practicable measures to prevent discrimination.”
The CMA was formed as an Association in 1981 and subsequently registered with the Department of Social Development as a Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) and with the Receiver of Revenue as a Public Benefit Organisation (PBO). The home address of CMA Members was never an issue for 43 years until concerned CMA members called a Special General Meeting (SGM) which was held in August.
The SGM was called as a result of some bizarre and illogical decisions taken by the CMA Board (of which Mkasi is also a member) combined with well-founded allegations of institutional corruption, maladministration and incompetence hitting the public domain. It would therefore seem that the Mkasi and KZNA playbook is to deflect and protect those accused of corruption, maladministration and incompetence.
READ MORE: Corruption, Maladministration & Incompetence: A Comrades Charge Sheet
Afterword: Three Bewildering Interviews
The interview contains two outright ‘lies’ by Minnaar. Firstly, that it was a small group of disgruntled members who have raised concerns (over 500 have actively voiced their support as well as many former winners and Comrades legends). The second is when he explains the Domicilium Rule as, “That no member of the association outside of the province can vote at any special general meeting or annual general meeting.” This is simply not true. This further adds to the speculation that Minnaar was appointed as he was “the most pliable candidate.” Ironically, Minnaar himself would not be considered a valid CMA Member under Mkasism as he is not a licensed KZNA athlete.
Mngomezulu is incredibly shifty-eyed during the entire interview (I would love to have a body language expert analyse this interview). Some key moments to look for:
Around the 2m30s mark Mahamba asks him, “Why is it so important to distinguish between those who are in the province and outside the province for any of the decision making.” Whilst Mngomezulu never answers the question asked, he does reference WA rule 1.1 (Note: there is no Domicilium Rule in any WA document) and talks about “territorial powers or domicile rule” and then says it should not be resolved in court. He then gets cut off by Mahamba for waffling.
Around the 4m00smark Mahamba gets to the crux of matter asking, “What is the harm in allowing them [non-KZN CMA members] to participate? What is the mischief that you are trying to cut out?” Unfortunately she allows Mngomezulu to dodge the question.
During the interview Mngomezulu repeatedly mentions (and reverts to the argument) that the matter “should never have gone to court.” Whilst it is entirely true that the applicants were a large group of concerned CMA members, they were forced into applying (and were granted) an urgent High Court interdict because of the dictatorial 11th hour ‘locals only’ decree by KZNA. The current situation is entirely of Mkasi/KZNA’s making and they could easily end it (as well as hundreds of thousands of rands in expenses) by withdrawing their opposition. The interim CMA Board, on advice from internal and external legal counsel, have already withdrawn their opposition to the case and have agreed to accept the final ruling of the court (this essentially waives their right to appeal the final decision).
This is a truly painful interview to watch – perhaps the worst interview I have ever seen. Vaylen Kirtley has to keep interrupting and eventually has to cut off the rambling Steve Mkasi. Mkasi does not answer any of the questions posed to him directly either.
Mkasi refers to the ‘late Ngconde Balfour’ twice – and this is not even the biggest lie in the interview. The former Sports Minister is still alive and kicking. Mkasi makes claims about discussions and resolutions from a meeting held in 2000 between the Sports Ministry and the CMA.
According to someone who was actually at the meeting, “Steve is absolutely lying through his teeth about what occurred at that meeting. It had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with who could or could not be a member of the CMA. He is making it up completely.”
At times it is difficult to follow the logic with talks about tsunamis, earthquakes and looking for the epicentre thereof.
Out of the blue, Mkasi further claims that there is a “coup” at Comrades House which comes as news to everyone who has been following this story. If this is referring to the democratic process that was followed at the Special General Meeting it is really worrying. If there has been a coup at Comrades it has been orchestrated by Mkasi in that we now have two unelected octogenarians as Chair and Vice of CMA and the appointment of a number of other interim Board members by a severely compromised and largely unelected Board.
It is also not disclosed that Mkasi, the President of KZNA, sits on both the KZNA and Comrades Boards so when he talks about letters being sent between the two organisations he is essentially communicating with himself. I have confirmed with former CMA Chair Mqondisi Ngcobo that essentially Mkasi the CMA Board member sent Mkasi the KZNA President a letter to investigate the application of the Domicilium Rule – and that is his justification for the expense and mess that he has caused.
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