A federal judge prevents the UNAM from resolving the case of the alleged plagiarism of Yasmín Esquivel

Minister Yasmín Esquivel, in an image from her social networks.@YasminEsquivel_ (RR.SS.)

The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) will not be able to resolve the case of the alleged plagiarism of Minister Yasmín Esquivel's undergraduate thesis.

This has been decreed by federal judge Sandra de Jesús Zúñiga, who has granted Esquivel the definitive suspension while the amparo lawsuit promoted by the minister is resolved.

This precautionary measure prevents the UNAM from clarifying —for the moment— what happened to the work that Esquivel presented in 1987 and that it was the same as the one published a year earlier by the student Edgar Ulises Báez.

The university still has the possibility of appealing the decision before a collegiate court, which will have the last word.

In the public part of the resolution it is not specified if the house of studies will be able to issue opinions regarding the investigation.

On February 13, one of the legal representatives of the minister of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) filed a lawsuit against the UNAM for allegedly having violated his "right to honor, to an adequate defense, to due process , legal certainty and legality”, according to the document presented.

The lawsuit is against five authorities: the rector Enrique Graue, the director of the Faculty of Higher Studies (FES) Aragón, the president of the University Ethics Committee and the Ethics Committee itself, and the Academic and Scientific Integrity Committee.

In the brief, the judge claims the first technical opinion, issued by the Academic and Scientific Integrity Committee, which certified that Esquivel's work was "a substantial copy" of that presented in 1986 by Báez;

the review order of the "matter of the copied thesis", issued by Graue on January 20 and the official letter requesting the intervention of the University Ethics Committee, as well as the official letters that the same ethics committee sent to Esquivel to participate in the investigation process.

Esquivel's lawyer also points directly against the rector for having described the fact as plagiarism, "without foundation or evidence to prove such an end, nor was there a procedure in which the right of defense of my principal was guaranteed, and only supported by the Technical Opinion prepared by the Academic Integrity Committee": "It has caused my principal serious moral damage and a significant impact on his right to honor."

Faced with these alleged violations, Esquivel asked those responsible for issuing the resolution to "refrain until it is decided whether or not their behavior has been in accordance with the constitutional mandate."

This suspension, which was provisionally granted last week by the judge and definitively this Tuesday, allows the investigation to continue, but prevents it from concluding until the amparo trial is resolved.

“The provisional suspension requested by the complainant is granted so that, if indeed it is subject to any administrative procedure (regardless of its nature), no final resolution is issued in it;

that is, that the responsible authority continue with said procedure, but refrain from issuing the final resolution, until the present incident is resolved, as long as said determination has not been issued", was issued on February 15.

This Wednesday the judge's brief on the final suspension has not been made public.

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