The High Court has rejected a former Trinity College Dublin pharmacy student's challenge to the decision that prevented him completing the M.Pharm programme and progressing towards registration as a pharmacist.
Timothy Orimolusi began the integrated pharmacy programme in October 2015. He eventually obtained a B.Sc. in Pharmacy but encountered repeated academic and administrative difficulties before and during his final postgraduate year.
Concerns referred to Trinity's fitness-to-practise process included repeated plagiarism findings, failures to register on time, arranging for another student to sign him into a mandatory workshop he had not attended, and problems with engagement in group work. Orimolusi accepted the underlying events but sought to explain their context, including financial and personal difficulties, and argued that withdrawal from the M.Pharm programme was disproportionate.
The School Fitness to Practise Committee recommended withdrawal in November 2023. That outcome was upheld through an appeal to the College Fitness to Practise Committee and ultimately by Trinity's Visitors, former Chief Justice Frank Clarke SC and former Court of Appeal President Mr Justice Birmingham, following a July 2024 hearing.
In judicial review proceedings, Orimolusi raised extensive arguments concerning jurisdiction, fair procedures, the treatment of plagiarism and whether earlier undergraduate incidents could properly be considered.
Mr Justice Barry O'Donnell first held that, in the particular circumstances, the University's process was amenable to judicial review because of its connection with fitness to practise in the regulated pharmacy profession. He stressed that this was not a general finding that Trinity's internal processes are ordinarily reviewable by the courts.
However, the judge ruled that Orimolusi could challenge only the final decision of the Visitors. By using the University's successive de novo appeal procedures, the earlier decisions had effectively been superseded and could not now separately be attacked.
The court found that the Visitors had adequately considered the jurisdictional arguments, mitigation and the accumulated conduct concerns. It also held that plagiarism dealt with individually as a disciplinary matter could still form part of a broader pattern relevant to professional fitness.
The judicial review claims were therefore refused. Trinity was provisionally entitled to its legal costs, subject to further submissions.