Court temporarily suspends lawsuit against former education minister
The People's Court decided to temporarily suspend Mr. Hoang Xuan Que's lawsuit against the decision to revoke Minister Pham Vu Luan's doctorate in 2013, citing that 'there are many documents and evidence that cannot be collected'.
After more than two months of suspension of the trial, on January 5, the Hanoi People's Court reopened the hearing of the case of Mr. Hoang Xuan Que suing former Minister of Education and Training Pham Vu Luan for having his doctorate revoked.
At the trial, the defendant's representative maintained his position that Mr. Hoang Xuan Que had his doctorate revoked due to "plagiarism" of Mr. Mai Thanh Que's thesis. The Ministry of Education and Training provided the court with additional working documents of the State Council of Professors' Titles meeting on December 8, 2016, with 100% of its members agreeing with the conclusion about "plagiarism" of the thesis.
In response to this information, Mr. Hoang Xuan Que said that the establishment of the above council was not objective and not in accordance with regulations. The lawyer defending Mr. Que's rights said that this was dishonest and fabricated evidence.
After 30 minutes of listening to the parties' presentations, and the absence of the representative of the People's Procuracy, the panel of judges decided to temporarily suspend the settlement of the case "because there were many documents and evidence that could not be collected".
The court announced that this decision takes effect from today and the case will continue to be resolved "when there is no reason for temporary suspension". The parties have the right to appeal the temporary suspension decision within 7 days.
According to the case file, in 2013, because Mr. Hoang Xuan Que was accused of "plagiarizing" Mr. Mai Thanh Que's 2002 doctoral thesis, the Ministry of Education Inspectorate stepped in to verify.
According to the working group's conclusion, based on the thesis archived at the National Library, Mr. Xuan Que copied about 30%.
At that time, Mr. Xuan Que explained that the doctoral thesis under his name being kept at the National Library was not the version officially defended at the State-level Doctoral Thesis Evaluation Council on March 26, 2003 because it did not have his signature in the "pledge" section. He suspected that it was swapped or mistaken for another copy because he asked his nephew to submit it on his behalf. Therefore, he believed that the version kept at the Library had no legal status and could not be used as a basis to determine the copied content.
In response to this opinion, the Ministry's Inspectorate stated that, according to regulations, doctoral students must submit the original copy to the National Library, get a receipt and send it to the Ministry to complete the doctoral degree procedures. All 3 chapters of Mr. Hoang Xuan Que's doctoral thesis have many sentences, paragraphs, and pages copied exactly from Dr. Mai Thanh Que, most in chapter 3. If this copied part is removed, the thesis will not be of sufficient quality to defend.
On July 17, 2013, the Doctoral Thesis Verification Council was established and 7 members (100%) confirmed that Mr. Hoang Xuan Que's thesis had copied part of Mr. Mai Thanh Que's thesis. The inspection team recommended revoking Mr. Hoang Xuan Que's doctoral degree and the decision to recognize him as Associate Professor; requested the President of the National Economics University to review and handle the violation.
On October 11, 2013, the then Minister of Education and Training, Mr. Pham Vu Luan, decided to revoke Mr. Hoang Xuan Que’s doctorate. Disagreeing, Mr. Hoang Xuan Que filed a lawsuit, claiming that this decision was illegal./.
According to VNE
