SA athlete Semenya did not receive fair trial, ECHR rules

Two-time Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya won a partial victory at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday in her seven-year legal fight against track and field’s sex eligibility rules.

Semenya has been banned from competition since 2018 because she refused to lower her natural testosterone levels.

While the Court found Switzerland to have violated the right to a fair trial in its Grand Chamber judgment, it declared inadmissible Caster Semenya’s complaints alleging violations of her rights to respect for private life and an effective remedy and claiming she was a victim of discrimination.

The court’s 17-judge highest chamber said in a 15-2 vote that Semenya had some of her rights to a fair hearing violated at Switzerland’s Supreme Court, where she had appealed against a ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in favor of track and field’s World Athletics.

Her case should now go back to the Swiss federal court in Lausanne.

A gift or an unfair advantage?

The European court’s ruling does not overturn the World Athletics rules that effectively ended Semenya’s career running the 800 meters after she won two Olympic and three world titles.

The original case between Semenya and track’s governing body was about whether athletes like her — who have specific medical conditions, a typical male chromosome pattern and naturally high testosterone levels — should be allowed to compete freely in women’s sports.

World Athletics, led by its president Sebastian Coe, has said its rules maintain fairness because Semenya has an unfair, male-like athletic advantage from her higher testosterone.

Semenya argues her testosterone is a genetic gift.