Romania’s justice minister, Radu Marinescu, is facing plagiarism accusations after an investigation published by PressOne claimed that more than half of his doctoral thesis in Law contains copied material. The analysis, authored by investigative journalist Emilia Șercan, found that 140 pages out of the 247-page dissertation are plagiarized. In his turn, the minister rejected the claims, questioning the timing of the allegations.

According to PressOne, Radu Marinescu’s doctoral thesis titled Sistemul mijloacelor de probă în procesul civil (The system of means of evidence in civil proceedings) includes extensive passages copied from other authors without quotation marks or proper attribution.

The media investigation said that most of the plagiarized content originates from three separate academic works, with some copied sections stretching across as many as 25 consecutive pages. The method identified is classic copy-paste plagiarism, described as the most common form of academic fraud found in the doctoral theses of Romanian public officials.

Minister Marinescu obtained his PhD in Law in 2009 from the Faculty of Law and Administrative Sciences at the University of Craiova, under the supervision of professor Ion Dogaru. PressOne noted that plagiarism was already classified as academic fraud at the time, both under academic regulations and Romanian law.

In a statement given to PressOne, the justice minister denied violating academic standards. 

“I do not consider that I plagiarized. That is what I can tell you,” Marinescu said, adding that his thesis was written “in accordance with the standards of the time and under the coordination of a reputable academic professor.”

Following the publication of the investigation, Radu Marinescu expanded on his position in a Facebook post, questioning the timing of the allegations and suggesting they were linked to recent actions taken by the Ministry of Justice, including the launch of a new prosecutor selection procedure. 

He rejected the plagiarism claims, emphasizing his academic background, his graduation as valedictorian from the University of Craiova’s law faculty, and his three-decade career as a lawyer with the Dolj Bar Association. Moreover, he also stressed that his doctoral thesis had been evaluated by the supervising professor, the doctoral committee, and the CNATDCU, without any irregularities being flagged at the time.

Emilia Șercan also reiterated her conclusions in a public Facebook post, stating that the scale of plagiarism identified in Radu Marinescu’s thesis is among the most severe she has encountered in more than a decade of reviewing doctoral dissertations held by Romanian ministers.

“Now let me tell you what my intuition and more than ten years of experience in reviewing ministers’ doctoral theses tell me: Radu Marinescu’s doctoral thesis is entirely plagiarized, and any original content - meaning just a few paragraphs - can be found in the “Foreword” and the “Conclusions.” I have not seen such a blatant case of plagiarism in a long time, with chunks of text taken consecutively from a single source,” she said.

The journalist further stressed that plagiarism remains plagiarism regardless of whether it involves a few dozen pages or the majority of a work.

Over the years, Emilia Şercan has published investigations into several high-level cases of plagiarism, including former prime minister Nicolae Ciucǎ, former education minister Sorin Cîmpeanu, or former interior minister Lucian Bode.

irina.marica@romania-insider.com

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