The University of Vienna announced on Wednesday that the plagiarism procedure against Minister of Justice Alma Zadic (Greens) has been discontinued. After an anonymous complaint, the university had the minister’s legal dissertation examined by international experts.
“The result is now clear: there is no question of plagiarism,” said a university broadcast. The intent to deceive to obtain an academic degree was not proven. This way Zadic can keep her doctorate.
Zadic can keep his doctorate
Decisive for revoking an academic degree is the intention to obtain it through fraud or the systematic deception of the authorship of a work, according to the university. “In the case of Alma Zadic’s dissertation, both of these are not present.” Questions relating to the realization of the dissertation, on the other hand, are not the subject of a plagiarism procedure, but are included in the assessment.
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“I have always said the allegations are false,” Zadic said in a statement to APA. “The research of the University of Vienna has confirmed this. I am pleased that the procedure has now been concluded as expected.”
In 2017, Zadic wrote his dissertation on the influence of the UN Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on legal developments in the successor states – in February this year, the University of Vienna received an anonymous report on its work. Experts in international law and international criminal law were therefore selected to assess the work.
Plagiarism hunter sees ‘cheating’ and ‘university corruption’
Plagiarism hunter Stefan Weber speaks of “cheating” and “university corruption” in the Zadic case. It was certainly to be expected that the University of Zadic would not withdraw his doctorate, he wrote in his blog. This has generally not happened in Austria in recent years. On the other hand, it was also not to be expected that the university would ‘deny’ the existence of plagiarism.
Weber draws parallels with the dissertation of EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn, whose plagiarism procedure was also stopped by the University of Vienna in 2011. The university thus commits “university corruption”: “It calls not lightly paraphrasing copying sentences without attribution plagiarism.” It further allows a source to be cited once and not once. “What a great charter for the aspiring academics!” says Weber.
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
