UNCONSTITUTIONAL DECISION OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT VIOLATING THE AUTONOMY OF THE UNIVERSITY
On the occasion of the recently published decision of the Constitutional Court of Serbia, the Network of Academic Solidarity and Engagement (MASA) again points to dangerous encroachments on the constitutionally guaranteed autonomy of universities. A year ago, we pointed out the limitation of autonomy by the legislative authority, when adopting amendments to the Law on Higher Education and legalizing the practice of the so-called blessings at the theological faculties, which limit the rights to education and work guaranteed by the Constitution.
This time, the Constitutional Court, with its purely textual interpretation of the Constitution, significantly limited the freedom of universities to review and revoke the titles that they are authorized to grant according to the Constitution and the law. The Constitutional Court thus once again failed to contribute to the filling of legal gaps with a more active approach and transferred the responsibility to the parliament, which has not performed its basic role for a long time. Nevertheless, MASA hereby calls for a new convocation of the National Assembly to, by adopting amendments to the Law on Higher Education, support the autonomy of universities, instead of further limiting and collapsing it.
MASA expects the Constitutional Court to show the same zeal and efficiency in deciding on the initiative to evaluate the constitutionality and legality of the provisions of the Law on Science and Research, which are related to the appointment of management boards of scientific institutes, where the majority are members appointed by the Government. This initiative was submitted in October 2020, and until now it is not known whether and in what way the Constitutional Court acted on it. The recently published decision of the Constitutional Court of Serbia regarding the initiative submitted in the interests of Minister Sinisa Malog has unequivocally shown that personal official initiatives have priority. By placing itself in the service of state officials, the Constitutional Court contributes to the further collapse of the academic community, in order to achieve the personal goals of those currently in power.
Unfortunately, the fact that the initiative was submitted to the Constitutional Court by Siniša Mali, who was proven at the University of Belgrade to have plagiarized his doctorate, attracted the public's attention the most. The Constitutional Court made a great effort to show that the rulebook regulating the procedure for determining non-academic behavior at the University of Belgrade is unconstitutional and should not be applied retroactively to cases started before 2016. MASA reminds that before 2016, these procedures were not regulated by law or any other by-law, and the adoption of university regulations was the only way to process various cases of non-academic behavior, including plagiarized doctorates.
Although plagiarism by several high-ranking state officials has been proven in the past ten years, while in the case of others proceedings have been conducted but have not yet been concluded, legal and moral sanctions have been largely absent until now. Academics and the general public are rightly concerned, because court proceedings are still ongoing in which Siniša Mali is trying to defend the indefensible, using exclusively arguments of a formal and procedural nature, the fact that by plagiarizing his doctorate he did not only an act that entails responsibility in academic circles, but also an act due to which in any democratic state he would have long been forced to resign from the high state office he holds. MASA hereby calls on the University of Belgrade to persevere in the procedures during which the plagiarism of Sinisa Malo was proven, as well as in the efforts to finally deprive him of the undeserved title of Doctor of Science.
