“His Counsel insisted that having been returned sufficient by the comitia minora, he had already acquired an inchoate right to admission, which the Court would enforce the completion of, by mandamus.”[[105]] For the argument and authorities vide Rex v. Askew ubi supra and Appendix.
“Lord Mansfield in his judgment laid down the following among other rules.”
“The Court (i. e. of King’s Bench) has jurisdiction over Corporate Bodies to see that they act agreeably to the end of their institution.”
“Where a party who has a right has no other specific legal remedy, the Court will assist him by issuing this prerogative writ (i. e. mandamus) in order to his obtaining such right.”
“But it is not a writ that is to issue of course, or to be granted merely for asking.”
“The College are obliged in conformity to the trust and confidence placed in them by the Crown and the public, to admit all that are fit; and to reject all that are unfit.”
“The judgment and discretion in determining on skill, learning, and sufficiency to practise physic, is trusted to the College, and the Court will not interrupt them in the due and proper exercise of it. But their conduct in the exercise of this trust thus committed to them ought to be fair, candid and unprejudiced; not arbitrary, capricious or biassed; much less warped by resentment or personal dislike.”
“It is possible that other causes of rejection than insufficiency of skill may occur, as badness of morals, for instance; of these the Court will judge.”
“If they should refuse to examine the candidate at all, the Court will oblige them to do it.”
“The power (of admission) remains with the body; and the examination by the President and four Censors is only preparatory, and for the ease of the body at large.”