How the government defends the doctoral titles of Jelena Trivan and others

Since our appointment as members of the Expert Commission for the determination of non-academic behavior during the preparation of the doctoral dissertation "Libraries and multiculturalism", the work in which Mrs. Jelena Trivan earned her doctorate, more than eight months passed before the full committee was formed. Two members from the faculty and one from the university were elected immediately. It took eight months for the National Council for Higher Education (NSVO) to appoint its member.

And while the three of us colleagues in front of the faculty and university knew each other based on publications and from conferences, the name of the member in front of NSVO, Borivoje Baltezarević, was new to us. Information could be found on the Internet that Mr. Baltezarević earned his master's and doctorate degrees at the Megatrend University, and works at the Institute for Serbian Culture in Pristina, based in Leposavic.

Photo: Jadranka Ilić/Tanjug

Acquaintances from the University of Belgrade told us about the work of similar commissions that they expect NSVO to sabotage the commission's work. Their member will keep getting sick, and then resign, and then the next one. So far they are right. Immediately before the first meeting of the commission, Mr. Baltezarevic informed us about his inability due to the "current deterioration of (his) health condition". After that he completely disappeared.

When we agreed on the text of the report, and when he was called on personal and academic ethics - by accepting membership, he assumed the responsibility to declare himself on the report we prepared - he informed us that he had already submitted his resignation to NSVO as a member of the commission. He did not inform the commission about it, let alone offer an explanation.

The resignation of one member returns the procedure to the formation of the commission. By delaying the appointment and changing the member, NSVO realizes its power to completely disable the university in fostering academic integrity and ensuring the quality of scientific and teaching work.

Contradictions

Why is the system not working? Does NSVO have an interest in sabotaging the procedure of examining non-academic behavior?

Persons who use non-academic behavior to obtain academic titles are often political officials or public figures close to the government. When the offense is proven, the government loses its popularity, so it is in its interest to prevent it. NSVO is a government body, and thus it has both the motive and the means to prevent the functioning of this mechanism.

A university is a university only if it is autonomous: free to govern itself independently of political institutions. The participation of the government through NSVO in the process of determining non-academic behavior directly nullifies the autonomy of the university. It allows politicians to secure diplomas and degrees with impunity through influence peddling - which devalues ​​diplomas and degrees and undermines the standards of evaluation and assessment, and thus the quality and credibility of universities.

There is no legal justification for the participation of NSVO in the dissertation review procedure. The state determines the standards and accredits universities that meet them, but does not participate in the university's work to meet those standards. This is also the case in the more developed and functional countries whose solutions are taken over by our legal system as a rule, from Germany and Austria, through France, Great Britain to the United States.

Consequences

Another way of government interference in the university's fight against non-academic behavior is realized in terms of the consequences of such behavior. The decision of the Constitutional Court from July last year denies universities the right to revoke titles - even when it is established that a title was obtained by fraud, without fulfilling the prescribed conditions and without acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills. The reasoning of the Constitutional Court is that such actions have the nature of ethical measures, but that their consequences change the labor-legal status of the person they deal with.

Establishing non-academic behavior is not an exclusive, or even a primary, ethical issue. It is primarily to establish that the student has not acquired the knowledge and skills that the diploma guarantees. In consequence, there is no difference between the holder of a degree acquired through non-academic conduct and the holder of a forged or purchased degree. And just as the latter two can be annulled, on the same grounds and for the same reasons it must be possible to annul the first one as well.

Photo: Strahinja Aćimović/Tanjug

The consequences that the revocation of the title has on the labor-legal status of the holder are exactly the goal of the revocation. A holder of a degree in medicine without the appropriate knowledge and skills must not be in a position to treat or teach students and organize the health system. A civil engineering degree holder who does not have the appropriate knowledge and skills should not be in a position to design residential buildings or bridges or teach (future) engineers. Limiting the labor-legal status of such persons is of vital interest for the health and safety of citizens and for the functioning of society.

The relevant parameters on which the Constitutional Court decided are identical in hundreds of other countries, but in all countries of the world for which such data can be found, including those with the longest legal tradition, the revocation of diplomas is legally acceptable, and within the jurisdiction of the universities that issued them. Is our Constitutional Court or the equivalent bodies of hundreds of less corrupt states wrong?

It is necessary that all three branches of government return to the framework of reason, as well as the good practices confirmed in numerous countries and systems - and leave the universities to dispose of their diplomas themselves not only when they award them, but also when they take them away, or determine the basis for that subtraction.

Boban Arsenijević, professor at the University of Graz

Snežana Samardžija, retired professor of the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade