The Court of Appeal decided that the editor-in-chief of the weekly Vreme Filip Švarm and the journalist Nemanja Rujević, the author of the text “Anatomy of a Dissertation”, must pay Jelena Trivan 80,000 dinars for damage to reputation and honor, because in the mentioned text, which was published five years ago, it is stated that at least fifteen percent of her doctoral thesis was copied by Trivan without citing the source.
The court did not dispute the allegations from the text, writes Vreme, but according to the verdict, only experts can determine whether a work is plagiarized or not, and journalists are not experts.
Therefore, such claims cannot be made public by journalists, says the Court.
Regardless of the fact that plagiarism can be seen with the naked eye, and there are several software that can confirm it, it is necessary to form an expert committee that will determine whether it is plagiarism.
The Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (IJAS) believes that this judgment represents serious pressure on journalists and the media and pushes them into self-censorship. Such a verdict means that journalists will no longer be allowed to point out the dishonorable actions of high officials for the sake of obtaining academic titles, and we remind that in the past there were too many such cases in Serbia.
We provide full support to the editorial staff of Vreme and encourage journalists to continue dealing with this topic because it is of exceptional public importance.
Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (IJAS)
Belgrade, December 13th, 2024