Lawrence’s legal representatives agreed to adhere to a request from Melbourne that Lawrence would destroy any capacity for him to use the email provided after Wednesday’s meeting.

Lawrence’s group want to maintain the capacity that just two members are required to nominate potential director candidates for election whereas Melbourne wishes to lift the number to 20,and that the constitution should limit director’s terms to nine years (three x three years) whereas the Demons want a provision that allows a president to serve for longer if elected midway through their nine-year term.

Lawrence said the clubs should be more amenable to opening up their democratic process to access a diverse range of views. He originally made an offer to have the club send out his material rather than having to hand over emails,ensuring the process was managed.

“We were very conscious of data privacy. I don’t want members’ details,either email or postal addresses ... so we said ‘if you don’t want to give us the register let us at least send our message out’ and they said ‘no’,” Lawrence said.

The club countered that they offered to do this after the verdict was delivered but by then Lawrence decided to handle the mailout themselves.

He questioned the club’s election rules as they hindered a candidate’s capacity to talk to members unless the board endorsed them. Lawrence said Carlton’s recent constitutional amendments,which updated their objects,were a good example of the direction the Demons could take.

The ‘Deemocracy’ group also wants other provisions included relating to the diversity on the board that would guarantee at least three female directors and recognition of the AFLW team and the club’s history. Melbourne want to recognise their AFLW team and change chairman and vice-chairman to president and vice-president.

The decision could have wider application as clubs hold membership details including email addresses and credit card details on the AFL’s server,the league-wide database of club members. Although the court limited the access of details for proper purposes it opened the question as to what consisted of the register for polling purposes. The application of costs would be determined next week.