United Kingdom court upholds University of London secrecy over Republic of China President Tsai Ing-wen PhD thesis examination

Republic of China in-exile President Tsai Ing-wen’s PhD thesis and United Kingdom Information Review Tribunal Judge Sophie Buckley who ruled the University of London did not need to identify the examiners who approved the thesis. (credits: Hwan Lin/Dere Street Barristers)

United Kingdom Information Review Tribunal Judge Sophie Buckley, writing for a three-member panel, upheld the University of London’s secrecy about the identity of Republic of China in-exile President Tsai Ing-wen’s PhD thesis examiners. President Tsai triggered an academic firestorm in the summer of 2019 when she submitted her 1983 PhD thesis to the London School of Economics Library, thirty-five years after it was due. Tsai has refused to name the examiners who approved her thesis, as have both the London School of Economics where she studied and the University of London which awarded her a PhD degree.

The thesis, entitled Unfair Trade Practices and Safeguard Actions, submitted to the LSE Library appears to be a draft document with pagination problems, footnote issues, and handwritten notations including a question mark. The thesis was purportedly examined on October 16, 1983, a Sunday.

The thesis problems became a political issue in President Tsai’s reelection campaign and many have taken to social media to question the PhD degree award where the matter continues to be debated.

The three-member Tribunal panel included Dave Silvers and Michael Jones, who heard the case and reached a decision on September 13th. Judge Buckley wrote in the decision released a week later: “We accept that Mr. Richardson has a legitimate private interest and that there is a broader public interest in the legitimacy of President Tsai’s PhD.

“We find that the legitimate interest can be achieved by the University’s confirmation that there is a written record of the names of the examiners and of the date that they signed approval of the thesis, and we find that this interferes less with the privacy of the data subjects than releasing the specific date or the names of the examiner. Accordingly, it is not reasonably necessary for the names or the date to be released.”

“Further, we find that there is sufficient evidence already in the public domain to satisfy Mr. Richardson’s or the public’s concerns about whether or not President Tsai was awarded a PhD, without the need to release this particular information.”

“This includes the fact that the University has publicly confirmed that the degree was correctly awarded and that it holds records of the viva and the pass list in relation to President Tsai and the fact that the thesis appeared in the IALS list of legal theses successfully completed for postgraduate degrees published in 1985. In our view it is not reasonably necessary to also disclose the names of the examiners and the date that they signed approval of the thesis.”

“Having concluded that it is not reasonably necessary to disclose the requested information it is not necessary to consider whether the legitimate interests are overridden by the interests of the data subjects and we find that the University was entitled to rely on the exemption.”

One person with a keen interest in the examiners’ identity is Taiwan newsman Dennis Peng, who faces criminal prosecution for defamation of Tsai for statements he made about the thesis. Tsai also sought prosecution against activist attorney Ho De-fen and Taiwanese-American scholar Hwan Lin. ROC prosecutors declined to press charges against the two although are seeking the imprisonment of Peng.

Although President Tsai’s thesis woes began at the London School of Economics, the University of London kicked the bee hive with the claim its copy of Tsai’s thesis was somehow lost during a thirty-year period of library restructuring. The University has failed to provide bibliographic or acquistion records documenting the receipt of the thesis; such records would be kept separate from the thesis in the event of loss of the shelf copy. The University also apparently failed to make a microfilm copy of the thesis, as was standard protocol at the time.

Under the arcane rules of the Information Review Tribunal, permission of the court must be obtained in order to appeal the decision. One of the primary issues in an appeal application will be the necessity of transparency in the verification of President Tsai’s PhD qualification. The Freedom of Information Act litigation now moves from factual assertions to legal arguments as it advances in the United Kingdom judicial system.

This article has been corrected at the suggestion of a reader.