Process

Professor Dokukin lost.

Representing in the Supreme Court the authors of written-off dissertations, at one time defended in the now closed dissertation council at GUUNPK (now Prioksky State University in Orel), former candidates of economic sciences Sergei Kalinovsky and Oleg Monogarov, he was logical and corrosive; much more convincing than the representative of the defendant - the Government of the Russian Federation - Olga Fedorova; brilliantly demagogic; and, it seems, thought that he had almost won - but there is no trick against crowbar: the ten-year statute of limitations for filing applications for deprivation of an academic degree has stood.

Of course, Professor Dokukin did not defend the unknown Oryol economists, but himself, or more precisely, his dissertation factory. The dissertation council at the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Standardinform", of which he is a member, is known to Dissernet as one of the most active - it has several dozen fake defenses to its name. Professor Dokukin personally had a hand in some of them: in particular, he was the scientific adviser of Galina Glebova (defense in 2011) and an opponent of Dmitry Gaivoronsky (defense in 2012) - these are the citizens who would have been spared the blow if the court had supported plaintiffs.

Separately, we can discuss whether a statute of limitations is generally needed for deprivation of a degree for serious violations, such as plagiarism or fictitious publications. It is clear that the claim itself became possible due to serious shortcomings of the existing Regulations on the Protection of Academic Degrees, or more precisely, the government decree that put this provision into effect. But in this case, the psychological aspect is probably more interesting: how should a person feel who has formally defended an obviously wrong case and lost due to the use of administrative resources by the other party? Professor Dokukin seemed genuinely upset. I think he will try to persuade his clients to appeal - but why would they?

M. G.

Case AKPI15-1527, claim of Sergei Ivanovich Kalinovsky and Oleg Mikhailovich Monogarov for invalidation of paragraph. 3 clause 2 of the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of September 24, 2013 N 842 “On the procedure for awarding academic degrees”; the representative of the plaintiffs is Alexander Vladimirovich Dokukin, the defendant is the Government of the Russian Federation ( http://www.vsrf.ru/moving_case.php?findByNember=%C0%CA%CF%C815-1527 ).