PHARMACY EXAMINATIONS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3828, 26 July 1927, Page 5

PHARMACY EXAMINATIONS.

PERCENTAGE FOR A PASS. A TEST CASE. WELLINGTON, July 20. A case which involved the power of the Pharmacy Board of New Zealand to vary the percentage of marks, required to pass its examinations, came before Mr Justice Ostler in the Supreme Court to-day, when Raymond John Paul, a chemist’s assistant in Dunedin, applied for a writ of mandamus against the board. The plaintiff said he had passed all the examinations prescribed by the Gazette regulations, and performed everything on his part to enable him to be registered as a pharmaceutical chemist by examination. Ho obtained more than 50 per cent, of marks in section C, but was refused his certificate, the board stating that by private resolution it had raised the percentage necessary for a pass to 70 per cent. Ho asked that ho be awarded a pass in section U and a certificate of qualification, and that he be registered as a pharmaceutical chemist. The statement of defence denied that the refusal was wrongful* and as a further defence said that by a resolution of the board it was determined that after March 2, 1925, the percentage of marks required to be obtained by candidates examined in practical pharmacy, being one of the subjects mentioned in section C. should be 70 per cent, of the total marks obtainable. The plaintiff failed to obtain 70 per cent., and was not entitled to a pass. It was further claimed that by section 30 of the Pharmacy Act, 1908. the board could grant or refuse certificates of competency and qualification. His Honor said that the regulations had the force of a Statute, and it was quite clear that such regulations could not bo altered by a more resolution of the board. They could be altered only by the introduction of further regulations. The plaintiff had, in his Honor’s opinion, a statutory right by virtue of the regulations to obtain a certificate of qualification, and to be registered as a pharmaceutical chemist, unless section 31 was intended to mean that, notwithstanding that a candidate passed the prescribed examinations, the board still had the jurisdiction to refuse him a certificate. Ho was sure that was never intended.

“Although I sympathise with the stand the board has taken —its attitude is merely to get efficiency in the members—it must do the just thing in the just way. If it wants to keep the standard up it must frame new regulations, get them approved by the Governor-General, and have them published, so that every candidate will know what he has to expect.” The mandamus was granted, costs being allowed to the plaintiff, for whom Mr J. S. Sinclair, of Dunedin, appeared.