Czech Chamber's commission to deal with law faculty's scandal

The CSSD proposed the establishment of the commission out of fear that problems at the Law Faculty could be "swept under the carpet."

The Social Democrats say the faculty's new dean Jiri Pospisil (ODS) provides no guarantee of independent investigation of the scandal.

The Chamber of Deputies commission should investigate the alleged unrightful granting of academic titles at the faculty where some students, mainly state administration and police officials and politicians, completed their studies suspiciously quickly, as well as the role of the accreditation commission and the Education Ministry in the checks of the faculty.

The commission is to have ten members with the ODS and CSSD having three members each, the Communists (KSCM) will have two members and the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) and the Greens (SZ) one member each.

The commission should submit its final report by the end of April 2010.

In the debate which preceded the vote on the commission the Social Democrats criticised the fact that former justice minister and one of the ODS's leading politicians Pospisil accepted the post of dean and remained a deputy at the same time.

"Hardly any trustworthy conclusions can be expected from Pospisil as a deputy for the ODS, a former minister for the ODS, the chairman of the ODS regional branch and a person placed at the top of the ODS's list of candidates for next parliamentary elections," regional governor and deputy David Rath (CSSD) said.

Pospisil would hardly probe into the diplomas of his party colleagues, ODS deputy Marek Benda and Mayor of the north Bohemian town of Chomutov, Ivana Rapkova (ODS), Rath said.

ODS chairman Mirek Topolanek said today that the suspicious granting of academic titles to Civic Democrat politicians was a serious moral problem.

Most recently, the media focused on the studies of ODS deputy Benda and controversial regional politician Rapkova who both graduated from the Law Faculty at the West Bohemian University in Plzen, west Bohemia.

Benda admitted that his dissertation did not meet the required standards and he asked the faculty to give him a chance to revise it.

The CSSD today called on Benda to resign from the post of lower house constitutional and legal committee chairman over his dubious law studies, but he refused to do so.

Former justice minister Pospisil was appointed new dean of the Plzen's law faculty today.

A number of students completed their studies of law, which usually take five years, in a suspiciously short time at the West Bohemian University.

A Czech accreditation commission concluded that these "miraculous" students were mainly high-ranking officials, policemen and politicians, who may now feel committed to those at the university who enabled their extremely quick completion of studies.

The commission's head Vladimira Dvorakova said earlier extensive corruption at the faculty led to a situation where a network of influential people threatened national security.

After suspicious cases were revealed at Plzen's law faculty, the Education Ministry ordered checks at other universities, too.

Autor: ČTK
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