Thevaluation of academic degrees and titles in Bulgaria is a process that erodes the academic community from within. It risks dismantling the already fragile trust in it.
While in the totalitarian state, the awarding of these titles was centralized, bureaucratized, and controlled, today each university has the right to habilitate candidates on the principle of “today – you for me, tomorrow – me for you.”
This parasitic practice
has permeated the entire higher education system in our country and is already bearing its toxic fruits. Nevertheless, in some universities with long-standing tradition and authority, there is resistance against it. In others, habilitation seems far easier. Moreover, individuals who have plagiarized and whose fraud has become public knowledge are allowed to participate in competitions, as is the case with former constitutional law professor at Sofia University, Petar Iliev. If the procedure against him for plagiarism, which was confirmed by the Ethics Committee of Sofia University, had concluded with a disciplinary action rather than his departure from the university “by mutual agreement,” his habilitation title of “Doctor” in law would have been revoked, commented Justice Minister Atanas Slavov to “For the Truth.” According to him, the Commission on Academic Ethics at the Ministry of Education and Science has also been notified regarding the case.
In a previous publication on the matter, which you can read here:
We how Petar Iliev appeared as the sole candidate for the associate professor position in public law at Thracian University and won, despite not having received the necessary legal majority of votes from the council of the Faculty of Economics. He was appointed by the rector following the opinion of university lawyers, which is a disgrace for any law graduate.
In the competition, Iliev presented one monograph, four studies, and eight articles. His habilitation monograph titled “Principles of Organization and Operation of the Judiciary in the Bulgarian Rule of Law” was submitted for printing by the author on February 7 of this year to the advertising agency “Euromedia.”
When we asked one of the two publishers, Dimitar Ivanov, whether the book had been printed and what print run it had, we received responses that resembled more his former professional role as an officer in the State Security Service
than those of a publisher, university lecturer, and author of scientific books.
Initially Ivanov claimed that the monograph had not yet been printed, then stated that “we won’t wait for the book because he is the publisher and will publish it if he wants to.” Finally, he presented a third version – that as many copies were printed as necessary for the habilitation, and the print run was a publishing secret.
Theograph has an ISBN – an international standard book number, indicating that it is publicly accessible, meaning it is publicly available. The National Register of Published Books in Bulgaria also lists the planned publication date as February 28 of this year. However, after a thorough check in several departments of the National Library, it became clear that Petar Iliev’s scholarly work is not present in its holdings (at least until July 19 of this year).
Theograph was not included in the documentation for the competition, confirmed to our media by Professor Dobri Yarkov – rector of Thracian University.
Professor Maria Neykova, dean of the Center for Legal Sciences at Burgas Free University and one of the two reviewers for the competition, also stated that she had not seen the book “black on white.” For convenience, as a member of the jury, she requested the author to provide the monograph in PDF format, but as “a lawyer and professor of law, she could not operate outside the legal procedures.” Therefore, she subjected all publications submitted for the habilitation to a plagiarism check.
N, like the rector of TU, has no qualms about recommending Iliev’s appointment. To be compliant and to adhere to the requirements of the Law on the Development of the Academic Community, one of which states that candidates for the position of “associate professor” must not have proven plagiarism or inaccuracies in their scientific works per the established legal procedure, she claims to have inquired with the Ministry of Education and received a verbal response that, according to the Ethics Committee’s opinion at Sofia University, no legal procedure for proving plagiarism against the former constitutional law professor had been established.
It turns out that besides the author, the publisher, and the members of the scientific jury for the competition, who wrote their reviews and opinions based on a text read in PDF format, no one else has public access to Petar Iliev’s habilitation work. This raises the logical question of why he does not wish for it to be published and disseminated within academic circles. After all, every scholar writes to be read and cited.
Only an inquiry by the competent institutions can provide a definitive answer to this question. However, according to the additional provisions of the Law on the Development of the Academic Community in Bulgaria, the monograph must have been published as an original scientific study with an ISBN, which includes editors or reviewers and consists of no fewer than 100 pages. “Principles of Organization and Operation of the Judiciary in the Bulgarian Rule of Law” has an ISBN but has not been printed, meaning it does not fulfill the legal requirements.
Therefore, it cannot be recognized as a habilitation work by Petar Iliev. On what basis then was Petar Iliev chosen and appointed as an associate professor at Thracian University, given that he did not receive the necessary majority of 50+1 votes from the present members of the faculty council?
This indicates that the Ministry of Education and Science should verify the legality of the competition and the selection of Petar Iliev. A pre-trial proceeding should also be initiated to investigate whether the doctor of law and his publisher attempted to circumvent the law. This could be appended to the pre-trial proceeding for plagiarism in the Sofia Regional Prosecutor’s Office, which was initiated in 2021 upon a signal from BOEC against Petar Iliev and has yet to be concluded.
In this nearly
criminal plot,
the so-called “Librarians” circle is clearly highlighted – former officers from the State Security Service at the university of librarianship, among whom is Dimitar Ivanov (the Gestapo) – the publisher of the unpublished monograph. Most likely under his protection, after leaving Sofia University due to the plagiarism scandal, Petar Iliev was chosen as a visiting assistant at the aforementioned university (Unibit), and since the beginning of this year, he has also been appointed as a visiting lecturer in commercial, administrative, and economic law at the Faculty of Economics at Thracian University. The selection of Professor Maria Neykova as a reviewer of the scientific publications presented by Iliev in the competition does not seem coincidental. She is part of the academic staff at Unibit as a lecturer in the “National Security” department. At the same university, Neykova also defended her dissertation for the academic degree of “Doctor of Sciences” in the field of “National Security.” Whether the protagonist of this rather criminal saga is connected to the former secret services by family ties cannot be asserted,
but beside the umbrella over his unfortunate academic career, the shadow of the backstage and the State Security Service is also evident in his nomination by ITN for the highest positions in the two proposed cabinets of the party.
We from Sofia University for comments on this still unresolved issue.
According to Prof. Neli Ognianova, presenting certificates for competitions instead of a printed book is not a precedent. However, this is not a problem of the law but of its abuse and practices, as when it was written, the authors did not assume that a gendarmerie would be needed to monitor its compliance. In a Facebook post, Prof. Ognianova published a link to an article in The New York Times, which reveals that the president of Stanford will resign after a report identified shortcomings in his research. Marc Tessier-Lavigne was cleared of allegations of
scientific fraud and misconduct,
but the review shows that his work has “numerous issues” and “falls below the usual standards of scientific rigor.” Ognianova’s brief comment is, “Standards. Do not invent arbitrarily, not to mention the ordinary copyists!”
Prof. Todor Tanev commented on the case not as mere cunning and evasion of the law, which undermines the fragile academia in Bulgaria, but as a severe form of corruption: “This is not about money; it’s about striking the image of the entire university. Those who adhere to the law are portrayed as fools. This is insulting to all of us, including people like Isak Pasi.” According to the former Minister of Education and Science, “the state security apparatus in Bulgaria has brought about an unfulfilled city.” The cadres of the State Security Service, commented Prof. Tanev, created universities and seized half of the state institutions. And now they want to be the new elite.
Following first publication of “For the Truth” on this case, the reviews and statements from the members of the jury regarding Petar Iliev and the monograph, studies, and articles he presented were removed from the official website of Thracian University.
