Siniša Mali plagiarism scandal

[21] Ten days later, Mali removed info on his doctoral degree from his official biography on the Ministry of Finance website, but he remained in office, refusing to step down and calling the decision political.

[5][34][35] Mali then modified it and submitted it to the University of Belgrade's Faculty of Organizational Sciences (FON) under the title Value Creation through the Process of Restructuring and Privatisation – Theoretical Concepts and the Case of Serbia.

[35] Group of authors, joined by the association "Save the science" ("Spasimo nauku") pointed out that even if two published works were non-plagiarized and legitimate, they wouldn't be acceptable for the doctorate defense.

Code on Accreditation of the Study Programs stipulates that, in order to be accepted for the doctoral theses, work must be published in magazines listed at SCIndeks, Serbian version of citation analysis.

Professional Code of Ethics, University of Belgrade, section of Article 22[45] Prompted by Karapandža's report, the FON formed a commission to investigate Mali's doctorate.

[48] Rector of the Belgrade University, Vladimir Bumbaširević [sr], on 10 June 2015 asked the Legal-Economic Sciences Council to re-examine the case after the retracted article by De Gruyter was reposted with added references.

One of them speaks no English so he couldn't compare the Hailemariam's doctorate to the Mali's one,[63] only one published works in a journal with impact factor, while the third was removed from the state university after he was caught by the police for selling exams to the students.

[73][74] Second complaint was filed by 3 professors from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law (Miodrag Jovanović, Goran Dajović, Bojan Spaić) who challenged the report on percentage of allegedly allowed plagiarism and commission's erroneous effort to comment and examine scientific contribution instead of checking if it is an original piece of work.

[89][97][107] Popović called for all politicians to respect the autonomy of the university and freedom of thought and expression of its students,[92][107] responding that with the 21st century technology, she doesn't have to sit in her office all the time anyway.

[109] Tabloid Alo in August 2017 sent a letter to the dean of the Wiesbaden university, asking him to fire Karapandža whom they accused of plagiarism and of smearing the names of Serbian citizens.

[112] The problem with Mali's doctorate already spread outside of the academia limits and became a much wider social issue in Serbia, but after the agreement between the students and the rector was reached, a full blown media attack against university professors began.

[122][123] Tabloids also accused one of the opposition leaders and former mayor of Belgrade, Dragan Đilas of bribing members of the FON's Ethics Commission to vote in favor of plagiarism.

[137] After several disciplinary commissions, where Danica Popović was the first professor to report the student, it was proved that Jakšić accused her of selling exams on one of the faculties public discussions (he said it was an "open secret").

[141] Ministry of Culture and Information issued a statement calling for strict following of the Serbian Journalists Code and "generally accepted moral norms", labeling the attacks "unsuitable rhetoric" and "unacceptable...pejorative, false and incriminating context".

[166] It was later discovered that Suknović tried to skip the process and avoid the voting of the NNV by sending the commission report directly to the university, thus evading FON's obligation to make a decision, but the rector returned it back to the faculty asking them to follow the procedure.

[160][173][174][175] On 21 November 2019, university's Professional Ethics Board overturned the faculty's decision and unanimously confirmed the non-academic behavior of Siniša Mali while writing his doctorate.

Rector Popović stated he violated the Article 22 of the university's Code of professional ethics, because he literally included texts and entire passages in his dissertation, without naming the original authors.

Also none of the commissions and the NNV failed to comply to the previous guidelines by the Board in order to improve the decision and all of them showed lack of readiness to establish true and complete facts relevant for the matter.

[183] President Vučić said he is not surprised by the university's "deeply political decision" and continued to insult and dispute people who were active in debunking the plagiarism, or were connected to them, adding Mali is doing "excellent work".

Speeches included: explanations that he wasn't elected because of the doctorate but because of his expertise, calling a Daltonist everyone who can't see this is a political decision, calling university pathetic, mocking the students, claims of conspiracy that this is just the first step in annulment of all doctorates obtained by the members of the ruling party, labeling the process of annulment as the amounting of various destructive energies and a conspiracy against president Vučić, labeling the plagiarism as "allegedly some kind of plagiarism".

[217] After Danas newspaper published an article on Mali's biography on his ministry website where he kept data on his doctorate, he deleted it on 22 December 2019, ten days after the official annulment.

He also mentioned publishing of detailed threats he received, misuse of the Security Intelligence Agency and interstate scandal which he kept quiet about so far because he wanted to avoid the politicalization of an academic matter.

[225] On 25 May 2020, a group of 20 professors filed a complaint to the FON's ethics commission regarding non-academic behavior of Mali's mentor, FON's dean and all members and presidents of the various commissions who kept confirming Mali's doctorate through years: Milija Suknović, Jaško Ondrej, Dragan Đuričin, Slađana Barjaktarović Rakočević, Milica Bulajić, Nevenka Žarkić Joksimović, Mladen Čudanov, Srđa Bjeladinović, Veroljub Nastić and Miloš Krstanović.

[228] In July 2020, the university added a clause to the Ethics Code by which the members of the commissions can't be liable for the views they express or the way they voted during the plagiarism procedures.

[236] Already in September 2019 journalists and editors Branko Čečen, Stevan Dojčinović and Aleksandar Đorđević, from three major investigative networks in Serbia (CINS, KRIK and BIRN, respectively), anticipated that Mali will stay in office even if plagiarism is confirmed.

On the question by Olja Bećković, the host of the talk show Utisak nedelje, is there a chance that Vučić will let Mali down the drain as part of his exit strategy, Čečen said that he doesn't think it will happen since various political and financial interests are so tightly entangled.

Criminal charges filed by several media organizations against Milomir Marić, the editor and host "Happy TV", were dismissed by the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office (VJT) in January 2020.

Though the university corrected its mistake, saving its honor, reputation, dignity and autonomy at the last moment, it was harmed by the years of its servility and silent acceptance of the pressure form the government and the tabloids.

[250] Former head of the Ethics Board, professor Radmila Vasić, confirmed that the reputation is damaged and that from various sides they get warnings that Serbian students are more thoroughly checked when applying for doctoral studies.

Also, if the NAT refuses to give credentials to some school or university, they appeal to the National Council for Higher Education (NSVO), where majority of members are also appointed by the government creating a way of bypassing the accreditation body.