The High Court has lifted an anonymity order allowing Trinity College Dublin and the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland to be named in a legal case against them taken by a pharmaceutical student found to have plagiarised his colleague’s work.
The third-level student has been granted High Court permission to pursue his legal action against the college, which twice made findings of plagiarism against him.
He claims he should not have been put before a fitness-to-practise committee.
The student, who retains his anonymity, took legal action against the Provost, Fellows and Scholars of the University of Dublin, Trinity College Dublin and the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland, which regulates the country’s pharmacists.
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At the High Court on Monday, Mr Justice Garrett Simons said the anonymity order granted to the two respondents in December by Ms Justice Mary Rose Gearty could be lifted.
Rosario Boyle SC, for the student, said there was no opposition to the naming of the college or the society, but applied for her client’s anonymity to remain in place.
The application to lift the student’s anonymity was brought by Patrick Leonard SC, for the respondents, who submitted that the student should be treated the same as any other person before the court.
Ms Boyle said the student, who is in his 20s, was two exams away from completing his qualification, and is challenging the internal proceedings at Trinity.
She said he was subject to professional and peer recommendations to work, which could be affected if his name was published.
Ms Boyle said there was an unfairness in her client being submitted to a fitness-to-practise review which was commonly a process used for professionals.
Her client had admitted making “academic” errors and has references from pharmaceutical professionals that he would make a “brilliant” pharmacist, she said.
“As of this minute, your client is not in good standing,” said Mr Justice Simons, who added that the student could be vindicated in the public domain by the court action taken if it was successful.
Mr Justice Simons adjourned the matter to October 20th and told Ms Boyle to find an analogy or case law to show him that graduated pharmacists have a right to anonymity based on potential damage to a livelihood due to allegations made against them.
In September 2023, the student attended a plagiarism investigation by the college. He told the investigators that he had attended an exam with a bundle of notes that also contained material provided by another student in his year.
The student asserted that he did not realise he had been transcribing directly from another student’s notes in the exam, and apologised.
The investigating committee said that even if the plagiarism was unintended, it was still an offence.
The student’s legal submissions claim that the university’s policy outlines that cases of plagiarism should generally be dealt with under the disciplinary regulations, and not under the fitness-to-practise policy.
