Category: Above the law
Period: from 2013
Siniša Mali, later finance minister, and Nebojša Stefanović, then interior minister, both earned their doctorates in 2013, and since 2014 both dissertations have been challenged as plagiarised; both men deny it. The Senate of the University of Belgrade twice revoked Mali's degree, but the Administrative Court overturned the Senate's second decision on procedural grounds, and a new procedure has been stalled since January 2024. Megatrend University found no grounds to revoke Stefanović's doctorate. Mali is still finance minister.
This pattern covers the disputed doctorates of two ministers. Siniša Mali, later finance minister, and Nebojša Stefanović, then interior minister, both earned their doctorates in 2013: Mali at the Faculty of Organisational Sciences (FON) of the University of Belgrade, and Stefanović at the private Megatrend University under rector Mića Jovanović.
Since 2014, both theses have been challenged as plagiarised. Both men deny it. Aleksandar Vučić came to Stefanović's defence, and Prime Minister Ana Brnabić said Mali would remain a minister in her government.
The Senate of the University of Belgrade twice revoked the degree of Mali, but the Administrative Court overturned, on procedural grounds, the rulings of the Professional Ethics Board and the Senate's second decision. A new procedure at the University has been stalled since January 2024, and Mali is still finance minister.
Megatrend concluded there were no grounds to revoke Stefanović's doctorate, and the outcome of the criminal complaint filed by the Alliance for Serbia over the recognition of his undergraduate degree could not be found. About 1,100 scientists signed a petition for an independent commission to examine Stefanović's dissertation, and Education Minister Srđan Verbić said the Ministry could not assess the quality of doctorates.
Rector Jovanović resigned in 2014 after the Ministry of Education established that he did not hold the London School of Economics doctorate he had claimed.