Dozens of people gathered in the centre of Bratislava on Wednesday evening to call on Parliamentary Chairman Andrej Danko (Slovak National Party/SNS) to disclose to the public his final thesis written 18 years ago, which has recently been challenged by the Opposition and some media outlets as to its authenticity. Danko received his master's degree at Comenius University's Faculty of Law and later earned a post-graduate degree at Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica. He allowed access to his final thesis for this degree only to a select circle of authorised individuals. According to media reports, two works bearing the same title and theme were drafted - one of them in 1999, a year before Danko's, at the Law Faculty in Bratislava. The leadership of Matej Bel University called upon Danko to publish his thesis. Danko replied that the document in question was not confidential and the relevant authorities have access to it.
Earlier on Wednesday, Eduard Burda, the Dean of Comenius University's Law Faculty announced they had failed to find in the archives a thesis with the title 'Public Administration and its Characteristic Features', defended in 1999. This is the document that was drafted a year before the final thesis with the same title and theme by Parliamentary Chair Andrej Danko, who defended his thesis at Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica. Dean Burda regrets that such a situation has arisen. "Something like this shouldn't happen. We will continue to investigate and look into what has happened," he claimed. He also stated that Danko's request not to have his thesis published is not unprecedented. The dean initiated a legal analysis into the matter from the perspective of copyright law, licence terms and the protection of personal data in order to draft guidelines for the faculty on how to proceed in similar cases in the future. Until the analysis is available, the faculty has chosen to block access to the thesis in question and make copies of it in order to prevent its loss.
