Alajmi v Macquarie University [2019] NSWSC 1026

Supreme Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: Alajmi v Macquarie University [2019] NSWSC 1026 Hearing dates: 4-5 June 2019 Date of orders: 15 August 2019 Decision date: 15 August 2019 Jurisdiction: Common Law Before: Payne J Decision: (1) Summons dismissed. (2) Plaintiff to pay the costs of the defendant as agreed or assessed. Catchwords: ADMINISTRATIVE LAW – reviewability – justiciability – subject matter of power or decision – matter of academic judgement – decision by a university thesis supervisor not to certify that a doctoral thesis met the University's preparation requirement that the thesis was the student's "own work" – findings of an investigatory panel into allegations of plagiarism against the student taken into account – not an exercise of public power – impermissible merits review

ADMINISTRATIVE LAW – legal unreasonableness – whether the "non-certification decision" and the panel's findings were legally unreasonable – Briginshaw standard did not apply – inferences made were reasonably open and logically available – not legally unreasonable – no irrelevant consideration – no apprehended bias – no impermissible fetter of discretion or subjugation of state of satisfaction

CONTRACTS – implied terms – parties agreed to be bound by the University's By-laws and Rules – no term that the parties also agreed to be bound by the University's Code, Policy and Procedure should be implied

CONTRACTS – legal unreasonableness – alleged failure to exercise a unilateral contractual discretion reasonably – "non-certification decision" not legally unreasonable

ESTOPPEL – estoppel by convention – mutual assumption – assumptions not supported by the evidence