Pal Schmitt

"LandepNews"

Pal Schmitt

Embattled president of Hungary Pal Schmitt on Monday resigned his office after his doctorate title has been taken away from him as a result of the scandal involving accusations of plagiarism that were brought to him since January 2012. His resignation comes after he had hinted on March 30 at the Hungarian television that he was an honest man and would work toward restoring his stained reputation.
Schmitt said reminded that the president of Hungary was the one to unite the entire nation and to express this unity, according to the Constitution he had signed off on at the end of last year and took effect on January 1, 2012, a constitution that draws on the Christian ethics and moral standards and recognizes the Christian roots of the Hungarian nation, which has brought a wave of criticism from European Union.
The same kind of criticism was drawn by some economic stipulations referring to the central bank and to the deficit of the country. These provisions of laws that Schmitt signed off on have blocked the continuation of talks with the International Monetary Fund on a new loan.
The Hungarian Constitution was also criticized for what the European Union considers to be shrinking of democratic rights: the right of the embryonic life to be subject to law protection since the conception, which practically criminalizes abortion; the definition of the family as composed of man and woman, which bars the perspective of recognizing homosexual marriages; the control of judiciary and the new regulation for the media.
Pal Schmitt was elected as president of Hungary by the Fidesz party in August 2010, being largely a representative position. The president is elected by the parliament and is deposed by two thirds of the votes.
On March 30, Pal Schmitt said that there was no link between the doctorate and the office of president of Hungary, and added that 20 years ago, when he wrote the work, he had done it with all honesty.
Pal Schmitt becomes thus the first president to resign since the central European country has shifted from Communism to democracy. He was a deputy of the president Viktor Orban during his government. Businessweek says that Schmitt had promised to be a “motor” of the governmental policy as president.
Previous presidents of Hungary have returned laws to the parliament in the past, even though their office had no executive powers, which lie with the prime minister. Schmitt is the first president to have said that he did not want to block the agenda of the government.
The approval of the president went down to 30 percent after the scandal broke out, from 49 when he took office. The opposition parties have demanded that he resign, and even members of Fidesz alluded that he had lost support.
The leader of the Socialist party said that Schmitt had never been fit for the job, the leader of Jobbik warned that unless he resigned the “wrath of the people” would remove him from power, and a leader of the Fidesz said that the time for Schmitt to leave the office in dignity had passed.
Viktor Orban urged that the decision should be entirely of the president and did not pressure him to resign until the last minute. The office of president will be executed temporarily by parliament speaker Laszlo Kover, until a successor will be elected by the legislature’s majority.
The scandal erupted in January, when accusations were made that the thesis presented by Pal Schmitt at the Semmelweis University in Budapest was not entirely original. Subsequent investigations showed that the work had been copied by 197 out of 215 pages from the book of Bulgarian scientist Nicolay Grigoriev.
The case went as far as to establish that there was a conflict of interests while the thesis was being approved, given that members of the thesis committee were also in the Hungarian Olympic Committed which was being chaired by Schmitt at the time.
Pal Schmitt said that he did not copy from the Bulgarian scientist and that he showed his good faith by mentioning Grigoriev work in the references of his work. He added that this kind of work required an amount of common core knowledge, which could not be construed as plagiarism.
Schmitt used to be an Olympic fencer, with two gold medals won in the Olympics. His work was on the history of the Olympics. The fact-finding panel cleared  the president of plagiarizing his work, but recommended the university to withdraw the work, based on the inquiries into the allegations. The university withdrew his doctorate title on March 27. Sky News says that Schmitt had said on Sunday that only the courts have the right to lift his title, not the university.
The plagiarism scandal led the rector of Ignaz Simmelweis University in Budapest, Tivadar Tulassay, to resign his commission, motivating that he had lost the trust of senior politicians, especially the Ministry of National Resources, and was left alone to handle the case of the president.

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