The University of Architecture, Construction and Geodesy (UASG) has allowed an absurdly conducted competition for “chief assistants”. The violation was eventually sanctioned, but not thanks to the university and the Ministry of Education, but to a professor whose 5-year legal battles to avoid dangerous precedents for Bulgarian higher education were crowned with success. The professor himself, Associate Professor Todor Tsigov, told “Sega” about this.
It is about an illegal competition from the end of 2018 for two main assistants at the Department of History and Theory of Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture, where Assoc. Prof. Tsigov taught until his retirement in M.A. The candidates, until then assistants with a fixed-term employment contract, presented dissertations on architectural topics. However, they are protected before scientific juries in the Faculty of Engineering and Construction, and that in the field of social sciences. This violates the Law on the Development of Academic Staff, which requires applicants, in addition to meeting the minimum national requirements, to have a doctorate degree corresponding to the announced competition, in the specialties of the regulated professions such as architecture. “Thus, a precedent was created, invalidating legal protections for regulated professions, dangerous for Bulgarian higher education and science. It allowed a doctor to defend a dissertation at the Academy of Arts – the human body is also studied there, or a lawyer to defend a dissertation on journalism – as a basis for academic development. Such dissertations are legitimate, but they are inadmissible in competitions for the regulated professions,” explains Prof. Tsigov.
Fortunately, the Committee on Academic Ethics at the Ministry of Education and Culture, referred to by him, ruled that the competition was illegal and after a long legal battle to implement this decision under the caretaker government, the Ministry of Education and Culture issued an order to cancel the administrative acts that shaped the results of the competition. One candidate retired in the meantime, but the other contested the new order as well – once he attacked the minister’s order itself before the Administrative Court of Sofia-city (ASSG), the second time – in the Sofia District Court (SRS) he sued the UASG. The reasons before the SRS are that he was fired illegally, because the minister is not a party to the employment contract and has no right to intervene and cancel the additional agreement to the contract. “This created a danger of a second precedent, even more negative for Bulgarian higher education: if the result of an academic competition was formed with an additional agreement to an employment contract, the minister would lose the legal right to control the competition procedure”, says Associate Professor Tsigov. In the end, the chief assistant, who became illegal, lost the case in the SGS at the second instance, and upon appeal at the third instance, the Supreme Court of Cassation finally confirmed the decision of the SGS. “Thus, the danger of the second precedent was prevented – with my active participation,” says Prof. Tsigov.
“To what extent the prevention of the danger from the precedents is due to me, we can judge by the fact that at the last, decisive meeting of the Supreme Administrative Court on January 11, 2023, the Ministry of Education and Culture did not send a legal representative; and I, as a private person, defended the interests of Bulgarian higher education and science”, he points out. “Since there is no case law in Bulgaria, the mentioned precedents would not be dangerous for the judicial system, except for the fact that the legal profession is also regulated. However, if they had not been prevented with my participation, they would have opened up new opportunities for academic corruption, because “academic players” would refer to them – as judicial ones – for actions beyond the law. But as a result of my active position, opposite court precedents were created, affirming legality in academic circles,” concludes Assoc. Prof. Tsigov.
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2024-01-26 08:31:58
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