‘Plagiarism hunter’
While the parliament was set to vote on three judges today, it was the dispute over SPD nominee Brosius-Gersdorf that deeply divided the coalition. Abortion in Germany is technically illegal, but is tolerated within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy on the condition that women seek counseling. Brosius-Gersdorf had developed a legal framework for decriminalizing abortion, leading some conservatives to oppose her nomination.
Still, conservatives speaking publicly suggested the true reason is the plagiarism accusation.
“The election of a judge to the federal constitutional court should not be the subject of a heated political debate,” Steffen Bilger, a member of the conservatives’ parliamentary leadership, said Friday. “An essential prerequisite for calming such a situation is that the respective candidates for the office … are beyond any professional doubt. In our view, this is no longer completely the case.”
The plagiarism allegation, however, is also drawing intense scrutiny.
The allegation surfaced the night before the planned vote on Brosius-Gersdorf, appearing on the website of Stefan Weber, who is referred to in Germany as the “plagiarism hunter.” In the past, Weber made similar plagiarism accusations against prominent Green politicians Annalena Baerbock, the former foreign minister, and Robert Habeck, the former economy minister.
In this case, Weber admitted that he wasn’t exactly sure whether the plagiarism allegation involved the dissertation of judge, Brosius-Gersdorf, or that of her husband, who finished his dissertation the same year.
“We don’t know that yet,” Weber told German tabloid Bild. “That’s the sticking point. Both works were completed almost simultaneously in 1997.”
Asked why he published the allegation the night before the parliamentary vote on the judge, Weber replied: “Since Baerbock in 2021, we have always done this before elections when we scrutinize candidates. This is the first time that it is not a voter election, but a vote by politicians.”
