No public law dimension to disputed college examination decision

Ahmed Fouad Rizk (applicant) v Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (respondent).

Judicial Review - Mandamus - Decision of internal committee - Jurisdiction of court - Whether public law dimension involved - Agreement to be bound by regulations of college - Effect of such agreement - Rules of the Superior Courts 1986, Order 84 rule 20 - Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (Letters Patent Amendment) Act 1979 (No.1 (Private) of 1979).

The High Court (before Miss Justice Laffoy); judgment delivered 27 August 1997.

Where by agreement either express or implied, a candidate undertakes to be bound by the regulations of a body, he cannot subsequently seek recourse to judicial review as the authority of the body derives solely from that agreement or contract which is devoid of a public law dimension. The High Court so held in refusing the applicant leave to apply for judicial review saying the court had no jurisdiction to make such an order where there was no public law dimension and furthermore, the applicant had not made out a statable case.

The applicant represented himself.

Miss Justice Laffoy said that the applicant, a lay litigant, sought leave to apply for judicial review under Order 84 rule 20 of the Rules of the Superior Courts 1986. In his grounding affidavit, the applicant outlined the facts which gave rise to his application, which facts were summarised in the judgment of the court. The applicant, a medical doctor resident in England, was unsuccessful in the examination for membership of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. He had taken the examination on two occasions, some of his papers having gone missing on the first occasion.

Once notified that he was unsuccessful in January 1996, the applicant embarked on correspondence with various officers and organs of the respondent. In short, his main contention before the court was that the Education and Examination Committee of the respondent did not address the issues outlined by him in a letter dated 28 August 1996. The letter contained allegations in relation to the way the candidature of the applicant was handled by the respondent and sought to have his papers marked again, a report furnished on the answers and reasons given for the marks allotted. This was understood by the court to mean a commentary on the errors in his answers.

Miss Justice Laffoy said that the applicant sought an order of mandamus directing that the respondent furnish a full report of the meetings of the Education and Examination Committee concerning the applicant; an order of mandamus directing the release of the results of the investigation of his complaints; an order directing that impartial inquiries be set up for all events concerning his case; an order directing that medical reasons be given for rejecting his answers in the examination; and finally an order quashing the decision that he had failed and granting him a pass and the degree of MRCPI. Miss Justice Laffoy said that the applicant had correctly identified the fundamental issue which arose in the application, namely, whether the court had any jurisdiction to grant relief by way of judicial review against the respondent.

Reviewing the authorities, Miss Justice Laffoy said that the position of the applicant was virtually indistinguishable from that of the applicant in Rajah v The College of Surgeons [1994] 1 IR 384. In his judgment in that case, Mr Justice Keane approved the approach adopted by Mr Justice Barr in the earlier case of Murphy v The Turf Club [1989] IR 171 where it was stated that certiorari or prohibition would not issue to a body which derived its jurisdiction solely from or with the consent of its members. Mr Justice Keane had described the relationship between the applicant in that case and the various examination committees as one deriving solely from the contract entered into by the applicant with the college when she became a student there. She thereby agreed to be bound by the regulations of the college which included the procedures which she now sought to question. It was not therefore, an appropriate case for judicial review proceedings.

Miss Justice Laffoy traced the incorporation of the respondent back to a Charter dated 1692. From a handbook of the respondent's, it was clear that the examination regulations of the college applied to all candidates entering for the examinations. The court concluded that the jurisdiction of the various organs of the respondent that decided whether a candidate has been successful in the examinations derived solely from the agreement, express or implied, of a candidate entering the examinations to be bound by the regulations of the respondent in relation to such examinations. In the absence of any public law dimension to the complaint, the court had no jurisdiction to grant leave to apply for judicial review.

Furthermore, Miss Justice Laffoy was not satisfied the applicant had established he had a statable case to seek the orders of mandamus sought or that the decision taken by the respondent that he had failed was ultra vires and that he was entitled to a pass by default.