High Court rules against UCD student in disciplinary dispute

High Court Rejects Student’s Bid to Halt Disciplinary Process

A fifth-year medical student at University College Dublin (UCD) has failed in a High Court bid to halt an internal disciplinary process initiated by the university following a confrontation with a senior academic. Ms Justice Marguerite Bolger ruled that the student had not presented a fair issue to be tried, finding no evidence of bad faith, bias, or procedural unfairness on the part of the university. The judgment allows UCD to proceed with its misconduct investigation, which the student had claimed was a retaliatory measure for a complaint he intended to file against a staff member.

The case casts a spotlight on the delicate balance between student rights and the autonomy of academic institutions to enforce their codes of conduct. The student, who faced significant personal and academic challenges, sought the court’s protection from what he perceived as an unjust process. However, the judge ultimately concluded that judicial intervention was premature and unwarranted, affirming that the university’s procedures had not, as the student contended, gone “so irremediably wrong” that they were legally unsustainable.

An Escalating Dispute

The origins of the legal challenge lie in a series of difficulties the student encountered in early 2025. According to court documents, he was grappling with medical issues that impacted his ability to complete his modules on time. While he successfully remediated three of these modules, he faced a significant hurdle with a course that required a four-day placement in a General Practice (GP) surgery. The student alleged that the module coordinator, identified as Dr Clendennen, was uncooperative and failed to help him secure a new placement, exacerbating his stress and academic precarity.

The situation came to a head on 13 May 2025, when the student and his father arrived at Dr Clendennen’s office without a prior appointment, seeking to resolve the placement issue. The student described the encounter as deeply negative, claiming in his affidavit that he “perceived disgust in the manner with which Dr Clendennen regarded my father and me”. He further alleged that the academic told him he should not return to her office again. This tense exchange prompted the university to file a security incident report on the same day.

Events moved swiftly thereafter. As the student and his father were leaving the Health Sciences building, they received a telephone call from Professor Cullen, Dr Clendennen’s superior. A meeting was arranged and took place shortly after. Feeling aggrieved by his treatment, the student informed Professor Cullen by email in the early hours of the following morning, 14 May, of his intention to lodge a formal complaint against Dr Clendennen, asserting a belief that she was prejudiced against him.

However, the university initiated its own proceedings. The student was informed that the incident in Dr Clendennen’s office had been referred to the Student Engagement, Conduct, Complaints and Appeals (SECCA) office. An incident report, completed by the Dean of Medicine, Professor Keane, alleged that the student’s conduct constituted a potential breach of the university’s student code. The specific allegations cited were obstructive, disruptive, or reckless behaviour, as well as violent, abusive, threatening, offensive, or unacceptable behaviour, with a particular emphasis on harassment.

The Battle Moves to the Courts

On 13 August 2025, the student was formally invited to a student conduct meeting, which represents the first, informal stage of the university’s disciplinary procedure. Believing the process to be fundamentally flawed and punitive, he took the significant step of launching High Court proceedings on 9 September 2025. He successfully obtained an interim ex parte order, temporarily preventing the meeting from going ahead pending a full hearing.

In court, the student’s legal team, led by John Rogers SC, advanced three core arguments. Firstly, they contended that the disciplinary procedure had been invoked in *mala fides*, or bad faith, as a direct act of retaliation for his stated intention to complain about Dr Clendennen. Secondly, they alleged a reasonable apprehension of bias in the process, pointing to the appointment of a Dr Last as the Dean’s nominee to conduct the procedure. They highlighted that Dr Last was a subordinate of Professor Keane, the Dean who had filed the complaint, and had collaborated on academic papers over the years with other individuals involved. This, they argued, created an unacceptable conflict of interest, citing the Court of Appeal case of *Burke v O’Longain* as precedent. Finally, they argued that the university had a duty to give precedence to his own complaint of bullying and harassment before pursuing disciplinary action against him.

The student also expressed profound anxiety about the potential consequences of the process. Ms Justice Bolger noted his concerns about the power of the Dean of Studies to impose a temporary suspension following a misconduct meeting, describing it as “a potentially very serious step that could have dramatic consequences for a student” on the cusp of completing his medical degree.

A Judicial Rejection of All Claims

In her comprehensive judgment, Ms Justice Bolger methodically addressed and dismissed each of the student’s arguments. On the critical question of bias, she found the student’s concerns unconvincing. She distinguished the current case from the *Burke* precedent, stating that the “mere existence of the collegiate research relationship” between Dr Last and the complainants did not reach the level of evidence required. An informed and objective observer, the judge reasoned, would not conclude that this relationship established bias, particularly given the absence of any suggestion that Dr Last had any prior involvement in the incident of 13 May or the School of Medicine’s recent affairs.

The judge was equally unconvinced by the claim of retaliation. She pointed to a crucial detail in the timeline of events: the university’s concerns about the incident were documented in the security report filed on 13 May, before the student had formally communicated his intention to complain about Dr Clendennen to Professor Cullen in the early hours of 14 May. This, the court observed, undermined the narrative that the disciplinary action was a direct response to his complaint. Furthermore, the court addressed the student’s concern that a reference to his mental health by Professor Keane was evidence of bad faith. Ms Justice Bolger noted that the student and his father had themselves raised his mental health struggles with the university on previous occasions, including in an application for extenuating circumstances and in a meeting where his father had expressed grave fears for his son’s wellbeing.

The argument that the student’s bullying complaint should have taken precedence was also rejected. The judge described the two procedures as fundamentally distinct. “Regardless of the outcome of the plaintiff’s bullying and harassment complaint against a member of the academic staff,” she stated, “it could not lead to an invoking of the student misconduct procedure”. She highlighted that the university’s own policies explicitly grant it the discretion to determine which procedure should proceed first in the event of an overlap. The court also expressed concern over what it termed a “failure on part of the plaintiff to make full disclosure” regarding his own complaint, noting that part of his grievance had been paused because he refused to consent to the disclosure of matters relating to the disciplinary procedure.

The High Bar for Court Intervention

Ultimately, the ruling hinged on the high legal threshold required for a court to interfere in an internal institutional process. Citing the Supreme Court’s decision in *Rowland v An Post*, Ms Justice Bolger reiterated the principle that courts should not intervene prematurely unless the alleged flaws are so severe as to be “incapable of being remedied within the procedure”. She was not satisfied that the UCD procedure had reached this point of being irremediably flawed.

Concluding that there was no fair issue to be tried, the judge refused the reliefs sought by the student. While acknowledging that financial damages would not be an adequate remedy for the student if his career were jeopardised, she determined that the “least risk of injustice” lay in allowing the university’s disciplinary process, which remained at a very early, informal stage, to continue as planned. The decision effectively dissolves the temporary injunction and clears the way for UCD to reconvene its student conduct meeting, leaving the medical student to face the internal process he fought to avoid.