The Stara Zagora District Court recognized the illegal dismissal of Associate Professor Lazarin Lazarov by the rector of the Thracian University (TrU), Prof. Dobri Yarkov and reinstated him to the position of “Dean” of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, which he held before the imposition of his disciplinary punishment.
The university was sentenced to pay compensation in the amount of 33,705.12 leva to Associate Professor Lazarov under Article 225, paragraph 1 of the Labor Code for the six months during which he remained unemployed. TrU must also pay the plaintiff’s expenses incurred in the case for attorney’s fees, the state fee due to the budget of the judiciary, and the remuneration of an expert.
The court’s decision is dated February 25 this year and is subject to appeal before the District Court in Stara Zagora within two weeks.
Associate Professor Lazarin Lazarov was dismissed on disciplinary grounds by order of the rector of the University of Veterinary Medicine dated July 19, 2019. For half a year, the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine was temporarily headed by Associate Professor Ivan Fasulkov (appointed by Professor Yarkov), during which time he was in a conflict of interest as chairman of the Control Council at the educational institution. Later, a new chairman was elected, but there was no procedure for the dismissal of the old one.
A new dean was elected at a general meeting of the Faculty Council of the Navy.
Ivan Fasulkov was the only candidate for the position, and the ballot paper with which the election was held had only one voting option – “yes” with no options for a negative vote or “abstention”.
On September 5, 2019, Associate Professor Lazarin Lazarov filed a report of plagiarism against the rector of the University of Veterinary Medicine to the Academic Ethics Commission of the Ministry of Education and Science, then headed by the acting Minister Galin Tsokov. In the signal, Associate Professor Lazarov proves with texts, diagrams, tables and photographs that in the two textbooks (one of them electronic, the other written in co-authorship), with which Associate Professor Dobri Yarkov appeared in the competition for the academic position of “professor” of veterinary medicine,
the foreign texts are almost 100 percent, which is undeniable plagiarism.
After checking the admissibility of the signal, the Minister assigned the Commission to conduct an inspection and issue a report on it.
5 months and 20 days have passed since the report was filed, but the Ministry of Education and Science is silent “like communists under interrogation” (according to Vesselin Andreev), despite the repeated questions asked to the ministry by Associate Professor Lazarov and “Za istinata” (“For the Truth”). According to information from our sources, which we will check again through the APIA,
The Academic Ethics Commission has proven plagiarism in Dobri Yarkov’s textbooks, but has not submitted a Report on the grounds that the deadline for a ruling has expired.
If the Commission has delayed preparing the Report, it should be asked for an explanation from the minister and some sanctions should follow. But in any case, the truth about whether Dobri Yarkov plagiarized should become public before his retirement in June this year. Otherwise, the suspicions that an umbrella, unacceptable from a legal and moral point of view, has been stretched over him and other rectors and habilitated persons in the country, accused of plagiarism, and some even with final convictions for other crimes, will be confirmed.
In his capacity as Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Education and Science in the previous National Assembly, Krasimir Valchev was sought out by “Za istinata” (“For the Truth”) as a Stara Zagora MP and very familiar with the “Yarkov” case. Then we asked him to address a parliamentary question to the acting Minister of Education and Science Galin Tsokov and he promised to do so. But today, as a minister in the “Zhelyazkov” cabinet, he has all the powers to request the Report from the Academic Ethics Committee and to take action in the implementation of the Higher Education Act. But this is not happening, why?
The recently registered association “Academic Ethics and Reforms in Education”, of which Associate Professor Lazarin Lazarov is one of the founders, intends to also notify European institutions about plagiarism in our academic circles, which is on the verge of becoming an epidemic.
