STUDENT’S CLAIM

Hokitika Guardian, 8 July 1931, Page 2

STUDENT’S CLAIM

SCHOLAR SHIP AWARD

CASE BEFORE COURT OF APPEAL, WELLINGTON, Juiy o. In the Court of Appeal the Chief Justice pair Michael Myu's), Mr Justice •MacGregor, Mr Justice Blair and Mr Justice Kennedy to-day are hear.ng argument in the suite.of James M -n----eote Syme. a student, . of Hawera against the University of New Zealand. Syme in ,arch last filed a statement of claim alleging that in 1929 He entered for the Taranaki scholarship, that he qualified An all respects and passed with credit the prescribed examination, but the university refused to award him a scholarship. He ask.d for an order that the university should award him the scholarship in question.

By its statement of defence the uii.■versity alleged that though Syme passed with credit his examination it did not consider he was worthy ol a scholarship on account of his position on the list of candidates for the exam-

ination. Mr Spratt, for plaintiff, submitted tliat Syrrte had fulfilled all the requirements necessary for award of tile laranaki scholarship, under the University Amendment Act, 1914, in that he passed with credit in the -entrance examination, that he was eligible ill all other respects and the scholarship fund permitted a grant to be made, Nevertheless, Syme seeming,y had been arbitrarily excluded by the Senate on tlu grounds that from his position on the list he was not deemed worthy of a scholarship.

Air Uooke, for the University of New Zealand, while admitting that Syme passed with credit, contended that the iSenat-e had ‘discretion hi granting scholarships as .long as all the recipients passed with credit. Section If ;(c) of the University Amendment Act, 1914, empowered the University Senate to grant a scholarship to those who passed with credit, as Syme admittedly. had, but did, not intend that all who so passed should receive a scholarship. The Act set the minimum standard „f eligibility and not the absolute test in a pass with credit. The University was not a mere cypher, as the determining of what was a pass with credit was in its hands. He submitted that the Senate had power to make regulations excluding candidates who, though they passed with credit, were not high enough on the credit list to “be deem-

ed worthy." •Mr Spratt, again speaking for the plaintiff, submitted that the Senate had

not sufficient power on its own account to make regulations relating to the awarding of the scholarship, hut even if it did have power to make regulations excluding scholars not “deemed worthy,” such limitation referred.. exclusively to character and not scholastic achievement. Secondly, Parliament had set Up a standard for the award of the scholarship in It pass with credit, and so long as funds permitted, as they did in this case, the Senate had not power to alter this standard and refuse to award a scholarship. The Court reserved its decision.