He will be remembered. He should be remembered, as there are many lessons to be learned from his story. The most obvious one is that plagiarizing extensively in a thesis is plain wrong, in a legal and in a moral sense as well, regardless of one’s position. The benefits of the title are just not worth the risk of getting caught, and stigmatized for a lifetime. This is fairly obvious.
Mr Schmitt will be remembered by many for his plagiarized doctoral thesis, but it would be unjust to stop here: a scandalous event, even if it ends a political career, should not steal all the attention from the larger picture. There are things Schmitt did — and refused to do — as president and as a private person that are also worth remembering.
The office of the president is mostly ceremonial in Hungary. Still, the president is supposed to oversee legislation, having the right to return proposed laws to the parliament, or send them to the constitutional court. Keeping an eye on the legislation is hardly a ceremonial role: it is a duty, rather than an opportunity. All of Mr Schmitt’s predecessors used their veto rights, although to different degrees. Árpád Göncz used it 11 times, while Ferenc Mádl and László Sólyom vetoed 19 and 47 times during their terms, respectively. How many laws did Mr Schmitt return to the parliament or forwarded to the constitutional court? Zero.No one is arguing that a president should veto a few laws from time to time, just for the hell of it, but completely neglecting a crucial presidential duty is a way different story. Truth be told, Mr Schmitt did not make a secret out of it: at the beginning of his term, the former president declared that he wanted to be an engine for the legislative process, rather than a brake. As a loyal member of the governing Fidesz party, this might have been a justified attitude. As the president of Hungary — definitely not. Mr Schmitt’s submissive attitude towards the papers landing on his desk had been captured in an especially rude joke, in which a cleaning lady tries to recover a runaway piece of toilet paper from the office of Mr Schmitt, only to find that she arrived too late: the president had already put his signature on it.
Definitely, Mr Schmitt has merits that can not be denied. As a member of the national fencing team, he won gold medals on two respective Olympics Games. He made a nation proud. He was elected one of the 14 Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament, the highest rank in the institution that a Hungarian citizen ever achieved. He was a successful diplomat, and a successful sportsman. Of course, he made some mistakes during his career. Who doesn’t? Some were ethical, others were criminal, and many of them were grammatical. One of those mistakes cost him his presidency. He is not the only politician to get caught with a plagiarized academic degree. A year ago, the German defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg had to leave office for a similar plagiarism issue, although he kept his job for less than two weeks after the scandal broke out. The Hungarian president’s case lasted for almost three months, enough time to make leaving with dignity problematic. I am pretty sure many of you, who are putting hard work in your own thesis, were justly horrified, alarmed, that a President of a democracy might get away with such an exceptionally harsh and evident case of plagiarism. He did not. Lets move on.
Some say Mr Schmitt single-handedly eroded the presidential institution in Hungary. This might be an exaggeration, but so is thinking that he was solely a victim of the circumstances. Yes, prime minister Viktor Orban wanted to appoint someone reliable for presidency, someone who is faithful to the party. Someone who does not make it unnecessarily difficult to bring about the radical changes that were planned. Fair enough, this is all part of politics. No one expected him to question every move the government makes, but signing all 321 laws that got in front of him, and referring to the government as ’we’ just might be a little bit over the line. The understandably growing number of cynics might add: It could have been done way less conspicuously, at least.What happens next? The new president is expected to be nominated next week. At the time of writing, the question of who will succeed Mr Schmitt is still undecided. Although nothing can be taken for granted, it is quite likely that after more than fifty years, Hungary will once again have a president with a proper, manly mustache.
Tamás György
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