Hello Judges, Players, and Tournament Organizers,
Recently, an Extraordinary Assembly was called to vote on the closure of the International Judge Program (IJP). The Assembly was announced on December 18, 2025, and held on January 13, 2026:
https://internationaljudgeprogram.org/extraordinary-assembly-closing-the-ijp/
After the Assembly, a one-week voting period took place. The results are as follows:
- 311 judges voted, out of 894 IJP members
- 84 judges (27.001%) voted not to close the IJP
- 227 judges (72.999%) voted to close the IJP, according to the conditions stated in the call for the Extraordinary Assembly:
https://internationaljudgeprogram.org/extraordinary-assembly-closing-the-ijp/
Screenshots of the results of the voting below. You can verify your vote using the following link https://vote.heliosvoting.org/helios/e/2026-general-assembly and the login and password you received by email on January 13th.
To approve the closure of the IJP, one of the following majorities was required under the IJP Statutes:
- Either 50% of all IJP members voting in favor (448 votes), or
- Two-thirds (66.67%) of the votes cast voting in favor
With 72.9% of the votes cast supporting the proposal, the required majority has been reached.
Therefore, the proposal to close the IJP has passed, under the following conditions:
Maintenance: there won’t be maintenance done at the end of 2025.
Levels history: The IJP website will maintain a list of the levels each member had, at least until September 2027.
Finances: The IJP will pay all its bills and debts until January 31st 2026. Then during the month of February 2026 donors of the IJP crowdfunding in Gofundme can register to receive a proportional refund of their donation.
Whatever is left after January 31st will be divided proportionally to their donation between the people who fill in the appropriate form. This refund will be made by wire transfer, the cost of this transfer will be deducted by the amount reimbursed.
Those who donated anonymously, will have to provide proof of their donation.
The form to request the refund will be made public in February with our final update of the Organization accounting.
Transparency: An updated financial statement will be provided at the Assembly on January 13th 2026. Another one after January 31st 2026 and a final one after closing.
This is the link to the most up to date financial statement: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wyS3OKkOMZr-ahyL2lrGWCpRAfOWenzXuNQkrswvzt4/edit?gid=0#gid=0
IJP’s content and know how: the IJP will donate all its content and know-how (exam questions; guides; procedures; mentoring tools; etc) to the future judge program, because we created it for the judges and we want it to continue improving the judge program in whatever form it will take in the future. Of course, if any IJP member created something and they don’t want that transferred to the new Judge Program, it won’t. After this motion passes, we will open a window for IJP members to notify about any content they created and they want removed.
If you do not one the IJP to transfer to the New Judge Program any content you created, please fill in this form: https://forms.gle/JZq7QNKrAYHSxz8U8
Closing Process Leadership: if this motion passes, there won’t be any future IJP elections. The current IJP Regional Representatives and Program Leads will be tasked to carry on the necessary procedures to legally close the IJP association.
Ongoing certification processes: If you have started any certification process and you wish to complete it, the IJP leadership will do their best to help you until the end. If that is your case, please reach out to the Level testing manager for the level you’re preparing for and your Regional Representative.
