MOSCOW, November 28 (RAPSI) – Moscow’s Basmanny District Court on December 11 will consider a defamation lawsuit filed by an active Moscow City Court judge and one of his retired colleagues against opposition-minded newspaper Novaya Gazeta, RAPSI reports from the courtroom.
The lawsuit, filed by Judge Dmitry Gordeyuk and former judge Yuri Bepalov, who is now a processor, demands that the plaintiffs should retract certain accusations of plagiarism, and pay out 300,000 rubles in damages.
Specifically, each demands his own 100,000-ruble compensation from the publication, and an additional 50,000 each from the author of the contested article, Nikita Girin.
The article, titled “Your plagiarism, your honor?” stated that Gordeyuk’s thesis had bits that were taken from the thesis of his mentor Bespalov, which raises the question of the thesis’ scientific value and the author’s morality. The plaintiffs demand that the information published should be deemed libelous and refuted.
Furthermore, the plaintiffs say that their names in the article are being used for commercial purposes, and serve to attack their profession and the independence of the judiciary.
The lawsuit echoes a series of plagiarism scandals that have shaken various tiers of the Russian government.
In November, a group of alumni from a specialized research center at Moscow State University (SUNTs MGU) alleged that the center’s director, Andrei Andriyanov, had plagiarized parts of his dissertation.
A special commission was subsequently formed by the Science and Education Ministry that established that 25 dissertations defended at the Moscow State Pedagogical University had been plagiarized.
Dissernet, a grassroots group that looks for plagiarism in academic works by Russian officials, has since its inception in 2011 identified what it claims to be the theft of written work by numerous high-ranking officials, including Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, children’s rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov, and several federal lawmakers.
Most have denied allegations of plagiarism.
