My university asked me pay 50€ to register for an exam

What can I say to that? Accept those practices, pay, and get graded? Act like a little sheep and eat what everyone gives me?

In this case, to be honest, yes.

If you don't like the rules then presumably there is some way of raising your concerns with the university. The problem is that the rule as it stands at the moment says you have to register yourself for the exam by the deadline, which you didn't. Even if you do manage to get them to change the rules, the new rules are only going to apply to things that happen after they're changed, they're not going to apply the new rules retrospectively to something that happened before the change.

I don't follow your way of reasoning. When you go to Court to challenge a rule and if they rule in your favour they don't make the good for you?

So no. I believe they will change my case if I find proper arguments.

Your analogy doesn't really work "I did break the rule but I disagree with it being a rule" isn't a defense. And if a law or rule is changed, it's not applied retrospectively to things that have already happened. The rule that matters is the one that's in place at the time of the incident in question, so unless you have some grounds for saying you didn't do anything wrong, then I'm afraid I can't really see you getting around the €50 fee.

I have to say that this rule doesn't strike me as particularly unreasonable

Your analogy doesn't really work "I did break the rule but I disagree with it being a rule" isn't a defense. And if a law or rule is changed, it's not applied retrospectively to things that have already happened. The rule that matters is the one that's in place at the time of the incident in question, so unless you have some grounds for saying you didn't do anything wrong, then I'm afraid I can't really see you getting around the €50 fee.

I have to say that this rule doesn't strike me as particularly unreasonable

Then why would anyone bring a case to court? It applies to the particular case being brought, although it is open to courts to rule that their judgment will have only prospective effect to allow for adjustment of - for example - commercial practice.

I didn't break anything here. I'm just trying to change a rule. And yes, I think it's unreasonable to capitalize on students for "missing deadlines"... They should remind us.

Of course they might say they have to arrange exams, and also that they sent me an email (once) to remind me about the exam.

This isn't a case of saying they did nothing wrong though. It's a case of someone who didn't do something according to the rules but wants to challenge it on the basis that it shouldn't be a rule in the first place, which isn't the same thing.

Hi everyone!

So I study Law in a Dutch University, and I missed the deadline to register for exams. So now they ask me to pay €50 to take the exam.

Seriously? That's not cool!

I took that course in extra in order to graduate faster, and that's how they reward effort?

Of course they might say they have to arrange exams, and also that they sent me an email (once) to remind me about the exam.

What can I say to that? Accept those practices, pay, and get graded? Act like a little sheep and eat what everyone gives me?

As you can imagine, I will go to the exam room and they will ask me to pay afterwards, which I won't. I will have arguments with the uni and I want to make things change in my university.

What do you suggest as convincing arguments?

But logically if the court declares the rule shouldn't be a rule then it isn't a rule; and that applies to the rule in the case being argued. An example of this might be the Cadder litigation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadder_v_HM_Advocate) where the police in Scotland's practice was to hold people for up to six hours without access to a lawyer (pleasingly named the 'six hour detention power')

The UK Supreme Court said that this was a violation of the ECHR and was thus ultra vires. On that basis the information gained from Cadder during the six hour detention was inadmissible. If the decision applied only prospectively then the information gained on Cadder would still have been admissible, but as it wasn't the case against him was dropped.

Would it make sense for anyone to take a case to court which wouldn't help them (litigation is extremely expensive) and would it make sense for the court to effectively say 'Yes, this is a bad rule, but you showing that is of no use to you'.

I take your point, though that case was ruling that one law was incompatible with another, rather than just saying "yeah that law is silly, we'll change that". Unless the university in question here has another rule somehow forbidding them from imposing such a fine, it's not a perfect comparison. In any case, trying to compare a university's handling of its regulations to a court of law is probably a non-starter.

I would suggest that if a university was to accept its rule was unfair or wrong then it would be the least they could do not to enforce it against the person who pointed this out.