The Association for Reform and Alternative University (GRAUR), a local association that fights against plagiarism in Romania’s academic sector, will ask the Ministry of Education to cancel its past decision and withdraw the title of PhD, "granted under illegal conditions", to former head of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) Laura Codruta Kovesi, according to a press release.

GRAUR, an association led by Dorin Isoc, claims that after one year of research “they are able to confirm that there are all the factual arguments that allow the conclusion that the thesis is plagiarized," local G4media.ro reported. The body that rejected plagiarism allegations admitted some 4% of the text was plagiarised and illegally decided that the share falls under the acceptable standards, GRAUR argued.

Kovesi's Ph.D. thesis “Fighting Organized Crime by Criminal Law" was coordinated by Professor Viorel Pasca and delivered at West University of Timisoara in 2011. The body specialised in supervising the academic discipline CNATDCU decided on December 8, 2016 that Laura Codruţa Kovesi did not commit plagiarism in her doctoral work.

The commission of specialists who made the verdict was made up of professor Vlad Constantinescu (Law School of the University of Strasbourg), Professor Claudia Ghica-Lemarchard (Faculty of Law, University of Rennes) and lecturer Radu Chiriţă (Law Faculty of Babeş- Bolyai from Cluj-Napoca), all three specialists in the field.

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editor@romania-insider.com

(photo source: Inquam Photos / Octav Ganea)