Schmitt-report costed 867 thousand forints

It costed 867 thousand 340 forints for Semmelweis University to find out that Pal Schmitt, stepped down Hungarian president’s doctoral dissertation was based on „unusually large amounts of verbatim translation”. Atlatszo.hu filed a freedom of information request to the University, but spokesperson Eszter Kovács refused to inform us for 15 days. The full 1157-page inquiry report is still not available for the public, only a three page long summary was published on 27 March. The spokesperson also informed us that although Dr. Miklós Tóth, dean of the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport Sciences was nominated for vice-president of Hungarian Olympic Committee just some days after the inquiry has started, they don’t consider him incompatible as being the president of the factfinding committee. Pál Schmitt was alleged of plagiarism in his 1992 thesis by business news portal hvg.hu. He stepped down from presidency on 2 April after his doctorate was withdrawn by Semmelweis University, as an end of a three months long inquiry.