Resolved: Academic appointed to post of full professor after Ombudsman and court find original decision by University of Malta to be arbitrary

Resolved: Academic appointed to post of full professor after Ombudsman and court find original decision by University of Malta to be arbitrary

Published December 18, 2024

On the 24th October 2022 the complainant, an associate professor at the University of Malta, applied for the post of full professor. The Promotions Board considered his application as premature and that he was not eligible for promotion since he had not yet served for eight years at Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor level. The Board, both in its initial decision and upon a request for reconsideration, refused to consider that part of the Collective Agreement which states that “the applicant’s direct contribution to the University, society, culture and the economy at large and the international community, will also be taken into consideration, and where extensive evidence may be seen, at the discretion of the promotions Board, to partially compensate for other criteria.” In effect the University had decided that the only criterion on the basis of which the application for promotion could move forward was that of the time served in the previous post or posts.

By decision of the 24th August 2023 the Commissioner for Education held that the Promotions Board’s refusal to consider the “compensatory criteria” was arbitrary and gave rise to unreasonableness, which was compounded by the absence of proper reasons for the decisions taken. The Commissioner recommended that the complainant’s application should be re-examined by a differently constituted Promotions Board and “that specific consideration should be given to the compensatory criteria being invoked by the applicant (complainant),” and that “any decision, whether in favour or against, compensation should contain cogent reasons, which are also to be communicated to the complainant.”

The University refused to comply with the Commissioner’s recommendation, contending that it had acted correctly. The Commissioner’s Final Opinion was eventually laid on the table of the House of Representatives. 

The associate professor sought judicial review before the courts of justice. By judgement of the First Hall of the Civil Court delivered on the 25th March 2024, it was decided that the University of Malta had acted ultra vires by failing to take account of all the applicable criteria for promotion, and held that the University’s decision to refuse to consider the application for promotion was null and void.

The University of Malta appealed that decision. However, the appeal was subsequently abandoned.

A differently constituted Promotions Board then considered the application, which was duly processed, and the opinion of two independent peer reviewers appointed by the Association of Commonwealth Universities was also sought, as is the established practice.

On the 22nd November 2024 the complainant was informed that the University Council had ratified the recommendation of the Promotions Board and that he was being promoted to full professor with effect from the 24th October 2022.