ANOTHER CURIOUS POINT OF LAW.......( Article by Professor Hu Chi Ku Chi )

Not so long ago I came across an interesting case involving a golfer who claimed he had been wrongfully expelled from his club. One particular argument concerned the highly contentious issue relating to " balance of convenience ".
The plaintiff argued that there was no reason to suppose that allowing him to resume membership would cause no significant difficulty , embarrassment or inconvenience for the club or his fellow members. Not surprisingly the committee , supposedly speaking on behalf of the membership as a whole argued the exact opposite. They believed that the effect of having to suspend their decision to expel him , thereby allowing him to resume membership , would no doubt engender an unfortunate atmosphere in the club. The presence of the plaintiff , having taken the club to court only to obtain a judgement ( and costs ) in his favour , would not be very conducive to maintaining a harmonious atmosphere . The focus of attention would be the serious financial damage he may have inflicted upon the club. In other words , ordinary members would feel uncomfortable and annoyed if the man who put the club in jeopardy was allowed to return.
Yet this is an argument that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Firstly , if the plaintiff won then clearly the committee members were at fault regarding (a) the initial expulsion process and (b) their later decisions to ignore all damage limitation options on offer . Therefore , it is far more likely that anger and/or resentment will be directed at them . Moreover, the reality of any sports club is that the majority of ordinary members are apathetic, indifferent and uninterested in the petty politics and disputes going on between particular individuals and the committee. Most just come to play golf , and probably have no idea who the plaintiff is. A few of course will know him personally , while others will know of him , having been told about him by the committee ,   or what they have indirectly gleaned about him from tittle-tattle conversation , gossip and rumours. 
For me the issue is whether the committee members speak just for themselves or do they really speak for all the rank and file members ? Did a sufficiently large number of members previously voice their concerns and objections about the plaintiff ? Were they canvassed about their views regarding this dispute , and how they would feel if the plaintiff was allowed to return ? If not then the committee's argument is nothing more than pure conjecture.
And on a final note , the committee tried to argue that the plaintiff would not be inconvenienced by his loss of membership ,  since he was a member of other golf clubs in the area , and could therefore play elsewhere. In my opinion , this argument too carries no weight whatsoever, because in high profile Scottish case involving an alleged wrongful expulsion , the judge was correct to point out that many members might well have shaped their social , sporting and ( possibly ) business lives around membership. In such instances it becomes no light matter to have that membership taken away, especially in circumstances where the alleged misconduct is merely objectionable , rather than something that needed to be categorised as possibly criminal , cruel , malicious or vindictive.