At the beginning of June, Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court (hereinafter referred to as "Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court") made a final judgment, holding that Peking University's decision to revoke Yu Yanru's doctorate was illegal and lacked clear legal basis, revoking the previous decision made by Peking University, and at the same time rejecting Yu Yanru's claim to restore the legal effect of his doctoral degree certificate, arguing that the claim "does not belong to the scope of accepting the case".
"Yu Yanru case" is the first administrative lawsuit in China in which the doctor's degree was revoked because of suspected plagiarism. The reporter has been paying attention to the progress of this matter. After the final judgment, the reporter contacted Yu Yanru, but she refused to interview.
First instance: Peking University's cancellation of the degree procedure is illegal and does not support the restoration of the degree claim.
Yu Yanru is a Ph.D. student of Peking University History Department in 2008. 20 13 graduated from Peking University on July 5th with a doctorate in history. Subsequently, she was admitted to the postdoctoral mobile station of the Institute of World History of China Academy of Social Sciences.
20 13, 1 In June, 2006, when she was a Ph.D. student, she submitted her paper "Stone Throwing Party Movement in French Mass News 1775" (hereinafter referred to as "Movement") to International News magazine.
In May of the same year, near the doctoral thesis defense, she submitted the defense application and scientific research statistics, and sports was included in her defense application as a scientific research achievement, marked "International Journalism 13 received, ready to go".
At that time, four papers published in core journals and three unpublished papers were submitted with sports.
On July 23rd, 20 13, Yu Yanru received his doctorate. After graduation 18 days, the article "Sports" was published in international newspapers and periodicals.
More than a year later, on August 7, 20 14, the international press announced that Yu Yanru had translated the original author's papers in a large section in Sports magazine and directly used the documents quoted by the original author as annotations, which constituted serious plagiarism.
Subsequently, Peking University set up an expert investigation team to investigate Yu Yanru's alleged plagiarism. 2015,65438+academic degree evaluation committee, Peking University 10 voted on 9 October, and Peking University made a decision to revoke Yu Yanru's doctorate, claiming that his sports papers published during his school years were seriously plagiarized.
Peking University said that according to the Regulations on Academic Degrees, the Opinions of the State Council Academic Degrees Committee on Strengthening the Construction of Academic Morality and Academic Norms in Degree Awarding, and the Basic Academic Norms for Postgraduates in Peking University, he decided to revoke his doctoral degree and withdraw his degree certificate.
Yu Yanru refused to accept the appeal and appealed to the Peking University Student Complaints Handling Committee and the Beijing Municipal Education Commission, but none of them were supported. 2065438+In July 2005, she took Peking University to court, asking the court to revoke the revocation decision made by Peking University, and ordered her doctoral degree certificate to resume its legal effect.
On June 65438+1October 65438+July this year, the Haidian District People's Court (hereinafter referred to as "Haidian Court") held that the revocation decision made by Peking University violated the principle of due process and the applicable law was improper. It decided to cancel the cancellation decision made by Peking University, and Peking University handled it according to relevant regulations.
Haidian Court held that although the Academic Degrees Regulations and relevant laws and regulations did not clearly stipulate the procedures for revoking the doctoral degree, the revocation of the doctoral degree involved the vital interests of the relative person, denied the corresponding academic level obtained by the person who obtained the doctoral degree, and had an extremely significant impact on the legitimate rights and interests of the relative person. Therefore, Peking University should follow the principle of due process, fully listen to Yu Yanru's statement and defense before making a decision to withdraw the defendant, and ensure that Yu Yanru enjoys the corresponding rights.
In this case, although Peking University interviewed Yanru at the beginning of the investigation, this interview is an investigation procedure. Peking University did not fully listen to Yu Yanru's statements and arguments before making the revocation decision, so the revocation decision made violated the principle of due process.
In addition, Haidian Court also held that Peking University's revocation decision only stated the Regulations on Academic Degrees and the Basic Academic Norms for Postgraduates in Peking University, and did not specify the specific terms, so there was no clear legal basis and the application of the law was inappropriate.
The first-instance judgment rejected Yu Yanru's claim to restore the legal effect of his doctoral degree certificate, which was considered not within the scope of this case.
After the judgment of the first instance, Peking University appealed to Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court.
? Second instance: even if there is no provision, procedural justice should be guaranteed.
The reporter searched the final judgment of Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court on China Judgment Document Online. The verdict shows that Peking University put forward three reasons in the appeal: there is no relevant legal provision, and the school must listen to the statements and defenses of the parties before making a decision to revoke the degree; The interview is an investigation procedure, and it is not necessary and impossible to mention the final result to Yu Yanru; Although the specific legal provisions are not listed in the revocation decision, this does not mean that the relevant legal basis does not exist.
The Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court held that the focus of the dispute in this case lies in: whether Peking University should apply the principle of due process when making a revocation decision; Whether Peking University's procedures for making revocation decisions conform to the principle of due process; Whether the applicable law is accurate when Peking University makes the cancellation decision.
In response to the first focus, Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court believes that the essence of the principle of due process is to listen to the opinions of the parties before making any decision to exercise power that will adversely affect others. The principle of due process is the basic principle and the lowest standard of justice in adjudicating disputes. In this case, Peking University, as an organization authorized by laws and regulations, should also abide by the principle of due process when exercising the right to confer degrees or revoke them. Even if the relevant laws and regulations do not stipulate the specific procedures for revoking degrees, they should consciously take appropriate measures to practice the above principles to ensure the fairness of their decision-making procedures.
Regarding whether it conforms to the principle of due process, Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court held that before Peking University made the revocation decision, the investigation team only interviewed Yu Yanru once, and the interview only involved whether the article "The Movement" was suspected of plagiarism. As to whether this problem is enough to cause Yu Yanru's degree to be revoked, Peking University did not give a corresponding hint. Without realizing the risk that his degree may be revoked, it is difficult for Yu Yanru to make a full statement and defense. Therefore, the interview of Peking University is not enough to draw the conclusion that due process has been fulfilled.
The Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court also held that in this case, although the revocation decision made by Peking University stated the name of relevant legal norms, it failed to specify the applicable specific provisions, and it was difficult for the counterpart to determine the specific legal provisions cited. Therefore, the court of first instance found that the revocation decision had no clear legal basis and was not improper.
After the final judgment came into effect, Peking University respected the court's judgment and handled it in accordance with relevant procedures. However, he will continue to be serious about academic norms, will never tolerate any violation of academic ethics and plagiarism, and earnestly safeguard the dignity of the academic community.
It is understood that in the course of litigation, Yu Yanru thought that the thesis she was suspected of plagiarizing was not her doctoral thesis, but an extracurricular work, which should not be used as the basis for revoking her doctoral thesis. Peking University, on the other hand, thinks that no matter what the nature of the paper is, as long as there is plagiarism in the paper, it is academic misconduct, and his doctorate can be revoked according to the relevant provisions of Peking University's school regulations and academic degree regulations.
In addition, the two sides have different understandings of the concept of "publication during school". Yu Yanru thinks that when the international publishing house published her works, she had already graduated from Peking University, so she didn't belong to publishing in school. However, Peking University believes that the creation, submission and publication of a paper is a process. Yu Yanru's papers suspected of plagiarism are listed in the column of "to be published" in his doctoral degree application materials, so they belong to papers published during his school years.
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Expert: Peking University's deprivation of Yu Yanru's doctorate was too severe.
"The judgments of the two trials evaded substantive issues. They didn't confirm whether the revocation of a degree was qualified or illegal. Instead, they illegally revoked the decision through procedures. In fact, after the correction procedure of Peking University, he can continue to make the decision to revoke his degree. " This case has aroused great concern in academic circles. The Education Law Research Center of Peking University Law School has held two seminars, and Liu Xin, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law, has expressed his views many times.
Liu Xin pointed out that from the substantive analysis, it is unreasonable for Peking University to revoke Yu Yanru's doctorate. She said that although Article 17 of the Academic Regulations stipulates that "the degree-conferring unit may revoke the awarded degree after reconsideration by academic degree evaluation committee if it finds that it has committed fraud or forgery in serious violation of the regulations", it gives the school the power and discretion to revoke the degree, but when using this power, it is by no means unlimited, and fraud and forgery should be distinguished.
"When Yu Yanru applied for a degree, he reported that he had published four unpublished papers, and the so-called plagiarism belonged to unpublished articles. The condition for Peking University to apply for doctoral thesis defense is that there must be at least two published papers. It is enough for her to apply for a doctorate without listing four unpublished papers. " Liu Xin said that the so-called plagiarism has nothing to do with Yu Yanru's doctorate. The magazine has announced that it has brought bad influence to the academic circles for the alleged plagiarism. The Administrative Punishment Law has a principle of equal punishment, which can be applied to all countries. Too harsh, too inhuman, too unreasonable.
Xiong, a professor at the Central University for Nationalities, holds a similar view. He pointed out that the conditions for granting a doctorate should correspond to those for revoking a doctorate. Excluding the articles that Yu Yanru was accused of plagiarizing, she still meets the criteria for obtaining a doctorate, and it is unreasonable to revoke her degree.
During the two discussions, article 5 of the Basic Academic Norms for Postgraduates in Peking University was mentioned by scholars. This article stipulates that once graduate students who have completed their studies and left school are found to have seriously violated academic norms during their studies, their relevant awards, diplomas and degree certificates will be revoked.
Judging from the provisions of this article, Yu Yanru's behavior belongs to the object of punishment. In this regard, Li Honglei, a researcher at the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out that although the Measures for the Implementation of the Academic Degrees Regulations stipulate that degree-granting units can make their own work rules for awarding degrees according to the academic degrees regulations, they should at least be consistent with the academic degrees regulations.
In addition, Li Honglei also pointed out that Article 5 of the Basic Academic Norms for Postgraduates in Peking University also stipulates the handling of plots, consequences and my attitude, but these plots are not considered in the handling of Ru Yan.
Yang Jianshun, a professor at Renmin University of China Law School, paid special attention to the principle of due process mentioned in the judgment of this case. He thinks it is of great significance to follow the principle of due process. He expressed support for the statement in the judgment that "Yu Yanru has no chance to defend itself". ? "We have been promoting the principle of due process for many years, which is very meaningful for promoting administration and teaching according to law."
Most experts believe that Peking University's decision to deprive Yu Yanru of his doctorate was too hasty and the punishment was too heavy. However, there is no official news about whether Yu Yanru's doctorate can be restored.
Keep waiting and see what the final result is.