Former Glasgow law student wins appeal against refusal of SPSO to investigate discrimination complaints

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2025] CSOH 48
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  Court of Session Outer House
• Judge:
  Lady Poole

Petitioner AB, who studied the common law LLB at Glasgow, argued that the SPSO was wrong not to investigate her complaint as it failed to take into account material considerations and had made a jurisdictional error. Permission to bring the petition was previously granted by the Inner House of the Court of Session after a successful appeal against its initial refusal.

The petition was considered by Lady Poole in the Outer House. The petitioner appeared as a party litigant while the respondent was represented by Blair, advocate.

Wrongly excluded matters

After completing her degree, the petitioner was awarded a 2:1 on 14 June 2022. While she contacted the Student Representative Council for advice on appealing, she did not submit an appeal until after she graduated, not realising this may have an effect on whether she could still appeal. The university declined to hear her appeal, resulting in the petitioner making a formal complaint based on prejudicial treatment of students on the common law LLB rather than the Scots law LLB and on the university failing to deal with her mental health issues appropriately.

In November 2022, the university rejected her complaint at stage two of its complaints procedure. The petitioner asked the SPSO to investigate the handling of her complaint, but after looking at her request it decided not to investigate further. In her appeal, the petitioner argued that the SPSO failed to take into account a representation of the university’s graduation team on 4 July 2022 asking her to return her degree parchment, which gave rise to a legitimate expectation that her appeal could proceed. The university had misapplied its rules on post-graduation appeals by saying there was no possibility for appeal at that stage.

The petitioner’s second ground of appeal was based on a difference in treatment between different classes of LLB students. She submitted examples including that no common law LLB students had been selected for the university’s European Human Rights Project in May 2021, and that grades for required courses for common law LLB students were on the whole lower than those in comparative Scots law courses. The SPSO had wrongly excluded these matters from consideration by failing to appreciate that they constituted discrimination, rather than matters of academic judgement.

In her final ground of appeal, the petitioner contended that she had provided information to the university showing she had mental health problems, and she was not signposted to the Disability Service or afforded reasonable adjustments. It was irrational for the SPSO to find that online information was sufficient when the petitioner had provided that information.

Distracted from theme

In her decision, Lady Poole said of the first ground of appeal: “Under the university’s regulations, graduation was not a bar to appeals in all circumstances. The decision of the university to reject the academic appeal shows no evidence this exception was properly considered. Further, there appears to have been no opportunity afforded to the petitioner to present evidence relevant to the application of the exception before making a decision about it.”

She continued: “It is true that the later decision of the convenor of the college appeals committee of 6 July 2022 is inconsistent with the email of 4 July 2022. But the SPSO does not appear to have considered whether it was in fact the decision of 6 July 2022 which failed to observe the university’s own procedures, rather than the email of 4 July 2022. The SPSO erred in leaving out of account these three considerations, which were material to the issue of whether the university had properly followed its own processes.”

Turning to ground two, Lady Poole said: “The approach the SPSO took of breaking down the complaint into particular issues, and determining them in turn, was understandable, aiming to provide some structure for the SPSO’s decision making. Nevertheless, in the result, breaking matters down in that way distracted the SPSO from the underlying theme or true nature of an important aspect of the petitioner’s complaint, of systemic discrimination between students on the common law LLB and students on the Scots law LLB.”

She added: “In a situation in which the petitioner’s complaint had raised multiple issues of differential treatment between Scots law and common law student cohorts, many of which were said to result from the way the courses were administered, potential issues of maladministration arose. There was a failure to appreciate the true nature of the complaint of systemic discrimination made by the petitioner.”

Lady Poole concluded on the third ground: “The SPSO had before it information that the petitioner had been given some support, and the petitioner mentioned counselling. Many students have ongoing difficult circumstances or medical problems, as noted in the Good Cause policy. The petitioner is clearly an intelligent and able person, who can access the internet; and had shown herself capable of accessing other university services. Even if other decision makers might reach a different decision on this aspect of the petitioner’s complaint, the SPSO’s decision not to investigate further was within the range of reasonable responses available to it. The third ground of challenge therefore fails.”

Accordingly, the court reduced the decisions of the SPSO under challenge. On further steps, Lady Poole observed: “The case does not decide whether the university was wrong to deny the petitioner an academic appeal, or whether there was discrimination by the university in the provision of its common law LLB course to the petitioner. The SPSO must now reconsider whether or not to exercise its investigatory powers further, avoiding the errors highlighted in this decision.”