Thilakawardhana v The Office of the Independent Adjudicator

Judicial review of a student-complaints review body requires a cautious approach. The court asks whether the decision was one which no reasonable decision-maker, possessing the expertise reasonably expected of that body, could have made. The body need conduct a fair and impartial review on the material before it, but need not determine legal rights or undertake a full investigation of the underlying facts.

Reasons may be brief. Their required detail depends on the nature of the issues. In fitness-to-practise cases, the decision-maker may assess conduct objectively by reference to professional standards and public trust. Subjective intention and the recipient’s actual belief may be less important. Where conduct is judged fundamentally incompatible with practising medicine, detailed consideration of lesser sanctions may be unnecessary.

The claimant, a medical student at the University of Leicester, challenged the Office of the Independent Adjudicator’s conclusion that his complaint was not justified. The complaint concerned the termination of his registration on the medical degree after an appeal panel found that a Facebook meme and accompanying private message constituted conduct rendering him unfit to practise medicine.

The university’s original panel had also considered previous professional warnings, but the appeal panel disregarded those warnings and relied solely on the Facebook conduct. The claimant alleged irrationality and inadequate reasons, including failure to consider the context of the messages, mitigation, subjective intention, the recipient’s actual belief, and alternative sanctions. The central issue was whether the OIA was entitled to conclude that the appeal panel’s decision was reasonable.

1. Claim dismissed. The court applied the high threshold applicable to judicial review of the defendant’s review decision. The question was whether no reasonable decision-maker possessing the expertise reasonably expected of the defendant could have reached it.
2. The defendant’s role under Part 2 of the Higher Education Act 2004 and rule 6 of the Rules of Students Complaint Scheme was to conduct a fair and impartial review on the available material. It was not required to determine legal rights or undertake a full investigation of the underlying facts. Courts should intervene cautiously where the decision is adequately reasoned.
3. The appeal panel was entitled to assess the meme and private message objectively. It could treat the claimant’s intention and PS’s subjective belief as less important than whether the combined conduct was aggressive, violent or threatening and likely to undermine public trust in the medical profession. The panel had sufficiently addressed the relevant context and mitigation, despite doing so briefly.
4. The reasoning on sanction was adequate. The appeal panel referred to regulation 11.165 and was entitled to conclude that the conduct itself was fundamentally incompatible with fitness to practise. Detailed consideration of lesser sanctions was therefore unnecessary.
5. The defendant was entitled to conclude that the appeal panel’s decision was reasonable and non-irrational. The claim was dismissed.

This was a first-instance judicial review claim in the Administrative Court. The claimant challenged the Office of the Independent Adjudicator’s decision dated 8 May 2015, which upheld its conclusion that his complaint about the university’s fitness-to-practise process was not justified.