A few days ago, an interesting piece of information appeared on media about the current German Defence Minister when he was alleged for committing plagiarism in his doctoral dissertation, earning him the title "Doctor".
It is reported that Mr Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, a 39-year old charismatic leader in Germany who is also expected as a possible Chancellor to succeed Angela Merkel, is facing huge pressure from the reports appearing in media about his committing plagiarism. An investigation is being done by the Bayreuth University authorities from where he earned his PhD degree in law, with top marks in 2006. The Chancellor, Angela Merkel is pending her decision regarding accusations on Mr Guttenberg till the university authorities finalise their report.
Originally, it was pointed out by a professor who was writing down a review of Guttenberg's thesis on Constitutional developments in US and UK, where he found that a couple of paragraphs were taken from other people without mentioning their name. It was also alleged that he used some excerpts from certain website including US embassy websites without referencing it.
Mr Guttenberg initially denied the allegations saying that his work was original and that he was working on PhD while a member of the legislative council and a very young father at the same time, so he had tremendous pressure of work and that he might have made mistakes to mention note at few places. The university had given him two weeks to submit his response to the report alleging him of plagiarism.
It is beyond doubt, a big setback to his fame, and especially the credibility he enjoyed in the conservative ruling party. This has brought serious damage to his aristocratic background and also be cause he was being considered as a successor to Angela Merkel due to his influence and his reputation. The opposition party, Social Democrats and the general public is equally voicing their anger over the grievous act, demanding serious actions against him, including step down from the public office he is holding, in case of the allegations prove against him.
According to BBC reports, Angela Merkel, the party head and the Chancellor, had indicated her support to him only if the he explained his position and apologise on that. Mr Guttenberg, who initially renounced his title "Doctor", temporarily, but as of now, has given up finally.
This is in contrast to the process that took place very recently in Pakistan's political scenario. In 2010, a number of parliamentarians including a few ministers enjoying influential positions in cabinet were found to be having fake degrees/ titles. Media played a very important role by igniting a hot debate on the issue leading to action taken by the apex court involving a few cases of parliamentarians. To the effect that, a few very powerful figures already dropped using their titles, however, unfortunately, the process of institutionalised accountability could not get much strength due to the uncooperative political machinery. It resulted into the fact that a handful of public representatives could not brought to the task of accountability, despite having a documentary proof of their misstatements, both in terms of educational qualification and their revenue returns, contained in their nomination papers filed with the election commission of Pakistan.
On the particular issue of verification of degrees, after the intervention of Supreme Court, which is the apex court of the country, Higher Education Commission was asked to conduct an inquiry report after verifying the degrees of all the parliamentarians from the relevant universities. A member of the legislative house when interrogated by the apex court, did resign from his candidature, failing to prove his degree as genuine, but on account of the failure of public accountability process, was re-elected only a few months later, from the platform of the ruling party.
This is shameful for us as a nation that people use unfair means to meet the eligibility criterion of graduation degree requirement to contest election, and also who commit moral and ethical corruption for using such degrees and abuse the sanctity of public process itself. Such leaders neither deserve to lead the masses nor be called as leaders. Unfortunately, despite the apex court initiate the accountability process, other departments of the government did their best to hinder the process. As a result we could not come up with any institutional arrangement of checks and balances for any such practices in future. Adding insult to injury, even those who were using fake degrees already, could not be brought to the process as HEC reported that a number of universities did not verified a majority of the degrees of the members of parliament.
The development of this issue which raised hopes initially in the minds of enlightened public that now these checks would be institutionalised and at least in future we shall not be having more such cases, but to all dismay the process was left halfway. Though a little success it achieved in highlighting the importance of the issue and made people aware of the level of ethical corruption going on in elite sitting in parliament.
Pakistan has witnessed tremendous developments during the decade of 2000-10, particularly in having an independent and liberal media and judicial activism especially at the apex level. These developments indicate a silver lining that imparts hope in this otherwise dark and smoky scenario. Given a few important pillars (media and judiciary) if keep working in future with same spirits, some day there may be real evolution in the society. Media needs to exercise even more prudence and dedication to help bring such nuisance to debate. During 2000s it has helped bringing into discourse such issues, hope is alive that during this decade of 2011-20, we would be able to get accountability processes institutionalised, as the western democracies have developed decades ago, and at the same time the judicial arm providing a force of sanction to these institutionalised safeguards.
(The author is doing PhD at AIIFL, University of Hong Kong.)