OPEN LETTER
TO THE RECTOR, SENATE AND COUNCIL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BELGRADE
Academics and the wider public in Serbia have known for several years about scandals and abuses at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade: extremely irregular financial operations, enormous incomes of a small number of employees, illegal accumulation of key functions, numerous cases of plagiarism. All of this was partly made possible by deliberately fostered organizational chaos, which brought the Faculty of Philology (FF) to a state of complete institutional and legal disarray. For years, FF has not been able to pass a new statute that would be harmonized with the Law on Higher Education and the Statute of the University of Belgrade (UB), to hold regular elections for key bodies and to properly constitute them, so even today it does not have an Ethics Commission, which would cases of plagiarism and other forms of non-academic behavior could be reported.
It is no secret that the greatest responsibility for such a situation rests with prof. Ph.D. Ljiljana Marković, who was dean of Faculty of Arts from 2016 to 2019, and then acting dean until July of this year, when she was relieved of her duties after a public reprimand issued to her by the UB Ethics Committee due to multiple violations of the code of professional ethics. However, that public admonition reveals only part of the moral character of Prof. Dr. Ljiljane Marković. The Ethics Committee of UB, by the nature of things, could not deal with her almost unbelievable financial mistakes, which were pointed out by the State Audit Institution in 2018, just as it could not deal with the fact that her scientific career is largely based on fictitious publications and plagiarism . Evidence of this exists, but the UB Ethics Committee, as a second-level body, can consider them only after the FF Ethics Commission, which does not yet exist. After all this, should we even say that the appointment of Prof. Dr. Ljiljane Marković as a special advisor in the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development (Ministry of Education) caused astonishment and indignation among the academic, and not only the academic, public.
Dismissal of Prof. Dr. Ljiljane Marković opened the possibility to return the work of FF to normal frameworks, and to that end, in agreement with the rector of UB, prof. Dr. Ivankom Popović, a plan was made how to, before the start of the academic year 2020-2021. year, elect a new dean and all key bodies of the FF. Bearing in mind both the interest of the students and the interest of the academic community, the representatives of the majority of teachers and associates of FF accepted, as a temporary solution until the election of a new dean, that prof. Dr. Anđelka Mitrović, one of the closest collaborators of Prof. Ljiljane Marković, Ph.D., will be acting dean of FF. The Ministry of Education was aware of this plan and did not express any objections to it.
The teaching-scientific council of FF, in a secret vote in which almost 901 TP3T of its composition participated, elected the members of the key faculty bodies at the beginning of this month. The results of that vote unequivocally showed that the teachers and associates want to put an end to lawlessness and moral decay, which have ruled the Faculty of Philology for years, and it was clear that their statement about the candidate for dean, scheduled for September 17, would confirm that commitment. It seems that this was not acceptable for those who for years, openly or from the shadows, managed the faculty, so the acting dean, prof. Dr. Anđelka Mitrović, first postponed the vote by a few days, and then the Educational Inspection of the Ministry of Education appeared, which - claiming that a new FF statute must be adopted first - ordered that the dean election procedure be suspended.
The decision of the Educational Inspection represents an open and rude attack on the university's autonomy guaranteed by law and cannot be justified by any formal reasons. The steps taken in the past months at FF, in agreement with the UB rector and with the knowledge of the Ministry of Education, are the only legal and legitimate way to overcome the deep crisis that has ruined the reputation of one of the oldest academic institutions in Serbia: only the quick election of a new dean will enable return the work of FF to the legal and statutory framework.
As long-time professors of FF, we urge you to most decisively ask the Ministry of Education to cancel the unsustainable decision of the Education Inspection and thereby contribute to improving the situation at FF. Any other outcome would have unfathomable consequences for the relationship between the authorities and the academic community in Serbia, because - and surely no one wants that - it would seriously threaten the autonomy of the university, without which neither UB nor other universities in Serbia can successfully respond to their complex tasks.
In Belgrade, September 27, 2020.
Prof. Dr. Ranko Bugarski
Prof. Dr. Darinka Gortan Premk
Prof. Dr. Vladeta Janković
Prof. Dr. Leon Cohen
Prof. Dr. Dragan Stojanović
Prof. Dr. Đorđe Trifunović