Former PM criticises suspicious ODS graduates

Prague, Nov 3 (CTK) - The suspicious granting of academic titles to Civic Democrat (ODS) politicians is a serious moral problem, ODS leader Mirek Topolanek said Tuesday in reaction to a big corruption affair that recently surfaced at a law faculty in Plzen.

However, Topolanek pointed out that this problem concerned only the individual graduates and the rules applied at Czech universities. He said the Civic Democrats would not check the controversial cases.

The ODS leadership has not commented on the scandals until now. However, some Civic Democrats showed fears that these cases might harm the party in the spring elections.

Most recently, the media focused on the studies of ODS deputy Marek Benda and controversial regional politician Ivana Rapkova (ODS) who both graduated from the Law Faculty at the West Bohemian University in Plzen.

Benda admitted that his dissertation did not meet the required standards and he asked the faculty to give him a chance to revise it.

The Social Democrats (CSSD) today called on Benda to resign from the post of lower house constitutional and legal committee chairman over his law studies, but he refused to do so.

Former justice minister Jiri Pospisil (ODS) has been appointed new dean of the Plzen's law faculty Tuesday.

Pospisil, who was acting dean for several weeks, has already introduced standard and binding study rules and launched preparations of a new student enrolling procedure and checks of dissertations and theses of those graduating from the faculty in the past years.

A number of students completed their studies of law, which usually take five years, in a suspiciously short time at the West Bohemian University.

A Czech accreditation commission concluded that these "miraculous" students were mainly high-ranking officials, policemen and politicians, who may now feel committed to those at the university who enabled their extremely quick completion of studies.

The commission's head Vladimira Dvorakova said earlier extensive corruption at the faculty led to a situation where a network of influential people threatened national security.

After suspicious cases were revealed at Plzen's law faculty, the Education Ministry ordered checks at other universities, too.