Gopikrishna, R (on the application of) v The Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education & Ors

The statutory exclusion for academic judgement does not protect every decision made by an academic institution. It applies only to the extent that the complaint centrally concerns a genuinely academic assessment, such as marking work or awarding a degree classification.

A complaint remains reviewable where it alleges procedural unfairness, bias, irrationality, reliance on irrelevant matters, or failure to consider relevant matters. A university’s refusal to reconsider a completed decision after receiving substantial new evidence may itself be an act or omission reviewable by the Office of the Independent Adjudicator. The OIA must examine separately the decision-making stages and must not treat the label academic judgement as conclusive.

The claimant’s course at the University of Leicester Medical School was terminated after she failed the second-year qualifying examination. The Academic Progress Committee accepted her mitigation and motivation but concluded that she was unlikely to complete the course successfully. The Termination of Course Review Panel upheld that decision.

The claimant complained to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education. The OIA found the complaint unjustified and later declined to review the University’s refusal to reconsider the matter after psychiatric and psychological evidence was supplied. The claimant sought judicial review, alleging errors concerning academic judgement, procedural fairness, a fresh decision, and material factual error.

1. The application succeeded in part. The Amended Complaint Outcome was quashed and the complaint was remitted to the OIA for reconsideration.
2. Decisions of the OIA are amenable to judicial review, although the court should be slow to interfere with an adequately reasoned decision and should respect the OIA’s broad discretion over the form and extent of its review.
3. The exclusion in section 12(2) of the Higher Education Act 2004 is, in principle, co-extensive with the common-law area of non-justiciable academic judgement. It applies where the central subject of the complaint is a genuinely academic judgement, such as the mark awarded or the class of degree. It does not apply merely because academics made the decision.
4. The decision that the claimant was a weak student and had poor future prospects was not simply a decision about marking or academic merit. It involved consideration of mitigation, authorised absences, past performance and the significance of passing the first-year qualifying examination. The OIA should therefore have considered whether the process was fair and rational, including whether relevant mitigation was omitted or irrelevant matters were relied on.
5. The OIA also failed to address the complaint that the Termination of Course Review Panel had refused to hear first-year mitigation, had proceeded without the claimant’s personal tutor contrary to its own procedure, and had failed to explain the treatment of Dr Nandakumar’s supportive evidence. These matters could establish procedural unfairness or irrationality even in an academic context.
6. The University’s letter refusing to reconsider the case after receiving new professional reports was a decision under section 12 of the Higher Education Act 2004, because the University had considered the new material and concluded that it was irrelevant. Alternatively, a refusal to exercise its power without clear and cogent reasons could constitute an omission. The OIA was wrong to treat the matter as incapable of review, although its conclusion that the exceptional-circumstances test was not satisfied disclosed no error of law.
7. The OIA had also proceeded on the materially mistaken basis that Dr Clarke’s letter had been before the Review Panel. Applying the principles in E v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2004] QB 1044, the error concerned an objectively verifiable fact, was not attributable to the claimant, and played a material part in the reasoning. It could not be said that the OIA would necessarily have reached the same conclusion had it known the true position.

The judgment itself records that permission to apply for judicial review was initially refused by Stuart-Smith J, but was later granted on amended grounds by Prof Andrew Grubb, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, in [2014] EWHC 743 (Admin). The present court quashed the OIA’s Amended Complaint Outcome and remitted the matter for reconsideration.