Graduation void if examinations during Erasmus are not passed

In the case dealt with by the Council of State (judgment no. 5430/2025), the applicant, after graduating in medicine and surgery from an Italian university, had her degree declared 'null and void' by the same university, by rector's decree. The decision was based on the assumption that she had never passed eight examinations of the degree course, which until then had been supposed to have been taken under the Erasmus programme at a foreign university.

The highest administrative court made it clear that contrary to the ruling at first instance, no value can be attached to the fact that the same examinations were materially recorded in the appellant's computerised transcript. From a substantive point of view, the fulfilment in question in fact presupposes that for those taken under the Erasmus programme there must have been prior recognition by the competent faculty council in accordance with the internal regulations.

In that regard, it should be noted that, as documented at first instance, after the facts had been established, the Italian University had taken disciplinary action against the author of the recordings, in his capacity as the appellant's undergraduate tutor, to substantiate the assumption underlying the contested measure that the recording of examinations not actually taken was attributable to infidelity on the part of an employee of the university.

On the basis of the documents examined, the Conseil d'État recognised as legitimate the declaration of invalidity of the degree awarded to the appellant at the time, because, contrary to the judgment at first instance, it was positively proven that the appellant had never taken and passed the eight examinations recorded in her computerised transcript and on the basis of which she had been admitted to the discussion of her thesis. Consequently, the degree was null and void even though it was obtained many years ago.