MOSCOW, February 10 (RAPSI) – The Moscow City Court on Monday upheld the ruling of the Basmanny District Court which ordered opposition-minded newspaper Novaya Gazeta and journalist Nikita Girin to pay out 410,000 rubles ($11,848) in compensatory damages for moral harm to two active Moscow City Court judges and one of their retired colleagues, RAPSI reports from the courtroom.
The lawsuit, filed by Judge Dmitry Gordeyuk and former judge Yuri Bepalov, who is now a processor, demanded that the plaintiffs should retract certain accusations of plagiarism, and pay out 300,000 rubles in damages.
Specifically, each demanded his own 100,000-ruble ($2,890) compensation from the publication, and an additional 50,000 ($1,445) each from the author of the contested article, Nikita Girin. On December 6, Moscow's Basmanny District Court partially granted the claims in part.
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 demanded that the information published should be deemed libelous and refuted.
Furthermore, the plaintiffs said 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 court also partially granted a claim, filed by Judge Ilshat Abbazov whose photo was used as an illustration to the article.
The lawsuits echoe 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.
