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Family Minister Franziska Giffey (SPD)
Photo: Michele Tantussi / REUTERS
The Free University of Berlin wants to cancel its complaint decision in connection with the examination procedure for the doctoral thesis by Federal Family Minister Franziska Giffey (SPD) and make a new decision.
This was announced by the Presidium of the Free University (FU).
In the past year, allegations of plagiarism were brought against Giffey's promotion.
The university then checked the work and, in some cases, criticized the unclean scientific work.
However, these deficiencies were not assessed as serious enough that Giffey would have had to give up her doctorate: the FU had only given one complaint.
The proceedings were thus actually completed without any further consequences for Giffey.
However, the FU Presidium is now planning a critical review of its own test procedure - and a new, final assessment of the case.
The impetus for this was provided by an expert opinion by the lawyer Ulrich Battis, whom the FU had commissioned to review the complaint decision.
Another report by the Bonn lawyer Klaus Gärditz, requested by the CDU parliamentary group in the Berlin House of Representatives, was also taken into account.
A "less severe" case?
Both experts came to the conclusion that the complaint made by the FU against Franziska Giffey did not comply with the Berlin University Act.
The actual plagiarism allegations were not examined in detail in either of the new assessments.
"After taking note of and assessing the present expert opinion, it emerged for the Presidium that a complaint was only admissible in a less serious case, such a complaint was not presented in the final report of the examination board for the dissertation and therefore a new examination should be carried out", it says in the Statement from the FU.
In other words: The complaint was not legal in this form, the test procedure must be reopened.
"Dr. Giffey is given the opportunity to comment on the intended annulment of the complaint decision," announced the university.
An exact time for this has not yet been determined.
After the plagiarism allegations became known in early 2019, Giffey asked the FU itself to review its work.
The final report of the investigation commission had been kept secret by the university for a long time and was only published a few weeks ago by the student committee.
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with material from dpa