UK Judge Buckley Orders Full Hearing on British Library’s Vexatious Ruling in Tsai Ing-wen PhD Dispute

Editors‘ Note:
This article was compiled and written by Anthropic’s Claude AI and reviewed by the human editors of Eat News.

In a surprising turn of events, Judge Sophie Buckley of the UK’s Upper Tribunal has ordered a full hearing for an appeal of the British Library’s denial of a Freedom of Information (FOI) request related to the controversial PhD awarded to Tsai Ing-wen, the President of the Republic of China.

This comes just four days after Judge Nicholas Wikeley removed Judge Alison McKenna in a similar vexatious ruling case. The British Library had deemed the FOI request on President Tsai’s thesis entry in its EThOS database as vexatious. However, Judge Buckley ruled that the appeal raised substantive arguments against the Library’s position.

The Tsai PhD controversy erupted in 2019 when she submitted a draft of her LSE thesis decades late. Since then, the London School of Economics, University of London, and now the British Library have received a flood of FOI requests seeking information on the PhD. The schools have labeled many requests vexatious and refused to comply.

However, the Upper Tribunal has pushed back against this blanket application of vexatiousness. Judge Wikeley’s removal of Judge McKenna was the first blow. Now, Judge Buckley has broken from past Tribunal rulings supporting the schools’ stance. Her full hearing order defies Information Commissioner John Edwards’ attempt to avoid an appeal.

In her rationale, Judge Buckley stated the Commissioner was wrong to solely base vexatiousness on an alleged Chinese concerted campaign. The appellant had raised substantive arguments on public interest in the PhD records.

The Tsai PhD issue continues to clog up UK courts. Despite her term ending in 2024, the controversy persists until her viva exam report is released. Judge Buckley’s latest ruling indicates the Upper Tribunal may finally be shifting towards transparency in the case.