Hungarian president stripped of doctorate
Commission finds he copied most of his thesis 20 years ago
Hungarian President Pal Schmitt was stripped of his doctoral degree Thursday after Semmelweis University decided he’d copied most of his thesis 20 years ago.
The university’s highest ranking decision-making body, the Senate, repealed the politician’s title after a recommendation from doctoral commission earlier in the day, Rector Tivadar Tulassay told reporters in Budapest in televised remarks.
Schmitt, who’s returning from a conference in South Korea, was unavailable for comment, a spokesperson at his office said.
An Olympic champion fencer and member of the International Olympic Committee, Schmitt has been an ally of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, signing every piece of legislation since assuming office in 2010.
European Union objections to some of those laws, including new regulations on the central bank and the judiciary, have blocked Hungary’s talks on an International Monetary Fund loan.
Hungary’s four parliamentary opposition parties have urged Schmitt to resign. Orban’s ruling Fidesz party, where Schmitt was previously vice-president, considers the matter “closed” after the commission’s report, spokesperson Gabriella Selmeczi wrote March 27 by email.
German Defence Minister KarlTheodor zu Guttenberg quit last March over allegations he plagiarized passages of his doctoral thesis.
A report by a fact-finding commission at the university, excerpts of which were released March 27, confirmed that 180 pages of Schmitt’s 215-page dissertation on sports were “partially identical” to another work, while another 17 pages were “completely identical” to a separate study, with neither receiving credit.
It blamed the university for over- looking the similarities with the previous works.
Schmitt’s thesis “didn’t meet the ethical and professional criteria of scientific work,” Tulassay said.
Schmitt said Wednesday that the panel’s report was a “sort of vindication” to him and that he didn’t think “for a minute” he’d resign as his doctorate wasn’t the reason he was elected as president, the MTI news service reported.
While Schmitt’s thesis included a bibliography, it didn’t cite sources and didn’t include footnotes or endnotes, according to the report, published on the university’s website. The commission didn’t use the word “plagiarism” in the threepage summary of its report.
While the office of the president is largely ceremonial and the bulk of executive power lies with the prime minister, Schmitt’s predecessors regularly returned legislation to parliament or sought Constitutional Court review. Schmitt said in June 2010 that he “wouldn’t block the government’s agenda” as president. Schmitt, who won Olympic gold medals in fencing in 1968 and 1972, was a deputy chairman of Fidesz from 2003 to 2007 and a vicepresident of the European Parliament from July 2009 to May 2010.