Chatzimarkakis loses court case about loss of doctorate

Georgios Chatzimarkakis dissertation was analysed by VroniPlag and found to have more than 70% of the pages containing plagiarism. The University of Bonn rescinded his doctorate, and he took the University to court. On March 22, 2012 the court in Cologne ruled against him. The judgement was published today, and it is quite a judgement: http://www.justiz.nrw.de/nrwe/ovgs/vg_koeln/j2012/6_K_6097_11urteil20120322.html

The court follows the documentation of VroniPlag and mentions it a number of times in the judgement. The court makes clear that both word-for-word and paraphrased copies need to be clearly marked and determines that this was not the case in all but two of the fragments VroniPlag documented.

It is great to have a legal judgement on this issue, especially one that is so clear. The court also explicitly discusses how VroniPlag weighs a case, and found this to be logical. If you read German - I strongly suggest reading the entire judgement.