The misconduct involves allegations of sexual assault between two students
The Federal Court set aside the Australian National University's Appeals Committee ruling in a student misconduct case involving allegations of non-consensual sexual intercourse, citing the committee's failure to conduct a proper review.
The University's Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic), Professor Grady Venville, initiated an inquiry in response to the complaint. She concluded that the allegations were credible and excluded the accused student from the university. Disputing the decision, the student appealed to the appeals committee, which upheld Professor Venville's findings.
The student filed for judicial review in June 2023, arguing that the university had denied him procedural fairness. Key points of contention included the university's failure to interview all witnesses and procedural errors in the initial inquiry and the appeals process. The appeals committee did not conduct a full merits review of the case. Instead, it limited its role to assessing whether Professor Venville's findings were "open" to her based on the evidence.
The federal court's ruling drew on a previous decision in which another appeals committee’s limited scope of review was deemed a jurisdictional error. In this case, the court found that the appeals committee made the same mistake by confining itself to whether Professor Venville's findings were "open" rather than conducting a proper merits review.
The court did not accept ANU’s concession that the appeals committee had denied procedural fairness by failing to disclose certain information to the student, noting that the undisclosed material was neither relevant nor adverse to the student. However, the court agreed that the committee's decision was vitiated by a jurisdictional error under the principles outlined in case law.
As a result, the federal court quashed the appeals committee’s decision and remitted the matter for further consideration. The student sought broader relief, including having Professor Venville's exclusion decision set aside. The court deferred a ruling on these additional claims, directing that the case be managed further.
