ACADEMIC ETHICS COMMITTEE — FUNCTIONING, LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND ETHICS

In Bulgaria, a legal commission on academic ethics has been operating since recently; it is a subsidiary body to the Minister of Education and Science. The regulations of this special body are structured through the Law of Academic Staff Development of the Republic of Bulgaria. Its functions are related to the implementation of certain control of the procedures for obtaining of the educational and scientific Doctor degree and the scientific Doctor of Science degree, as well as for academic positions in Bulgarian universities. In the past, the most frequently considered cases have been related to incrimination in plagiarism and filing a special report to the Minister of Education and Science.. A priori, the question arises as to how to structure this Academic Ethics Committee, which is determined by order of the Minister of Education and Science. In the practice of forming the membership of such committee, the selection criteria, which must be high enough to be able to guarantee a certain impartiality, are not clear. These are not defined either in the Law for academic staff development of the Republic of Bulgaria and the regulations for its application or in other public normative document. Determining the membership of this kind of national specialized body is of particular importance both for its functioning as well as the competences of its members. Those are currently in active employment relationships with certain universities or research organizations, which predetermines their direct dependence on their managers, who are at the same time their employers. Last but not least, it is worth mentioning the direct connection between the Minister of Education and Science and the heads of higher education institutions in Bulgaria, who have contractual relations of special type of management contracts. These direct and indirect relations create preconditions for dependence of this specialized body - the Academic Ethics Committee. This study attempts to provide a legal and ethical response to the actions of the Academic Ethics Committee at the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science.