December 28, 2019

Plagiarism in Serbia: ill the Finance Minister resign and why not?

topic:	Good Governance
located:	Serbia
editor:	Katarina Panić

The Belgrade University Senate this month unanimously declared Serbia's Finance Minister Siniša Mali's doctorate as plagiarism. With all 32 present members voting in favour, the Senate confirmed the University’s Professional Ethics Committee decision. The act is final, the Minister’s PhD is cancelled and Siniša Mali can appeal the decision with the Administrative Court.

Mali’s stolen PhD is only one of the numerous affairs produced by ruling Serbian Progressive Party, SNS since they took over the power in 2012. Yet, it certainly has the most serious significance because of its level: it disturbs the whole system of values and calls the academic integrity into question.

It all started in July 2014 when Raša Karapandža, a professor at EBS University in Germany published an analysis in which he explained how Mali had plagiarised the work of others and lifted text from Serbia’s Privatisation Agency and Wikipedia in his dissertation. Soon, more than 140 university professors signed the petition against Mali.

However, because of enormous political pressure, the process has been delayed for more than five years. In September the students blocked the Rectorate for 12 days. demanding the University to finally solve what they described as plagiarism from the very beginning. Last month the University’s Committee said it had unanimously established that Mali in his doctoral dissertation “literally took texts or entire passages from texts of other authors, without mentioning the names of those authors”.

And then nothing happened. Not only did he refuse to resign, but he got support from the highest officials. They claim the decision is politically motivated, they find the Finance Minister does his job well, they even go so far as to say that “having a PhD or not is a private matter” and that “opposition is fabricating affairs”.

Former Mayor of Belgrade, Mali has also faced allegations of concealing his ownership of apartments on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast and of involvement in the controversial demolition of a riverside area of Belgrade known as Savamala. He has denied all wrongdoing.

“It would be shameful and dangerous if he keeps the position after his title is invalidated. Anyway, I don’t expect him to leave by himself, nor to be replaced by the government. I don’t see who could make them change their minds. The message is clear: the authorities are untouchable”, Dragan Popadić, one of the University professors told the media.

A series of peaceful protests over the rise of political violence and against the authoritarian rule of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and his governing SNS in Belgrade have lasted more than a year as they become some of the longest-running in Europe.