Senior Chinese law researcher target of PhD plagiarism claims
- News site says it has verified allegations that China Law Society figure copied sections of his dissertation from a series of academic journals
A Chinese university has promised to treat seriously claims that a senior figure in the country’s peak body for legal professionals lifted sections of his doctoral dissertation from academic journals, according to a Chinese media report.
The plagiarism claims against Li Shichun, head of the China Law Society’s legal information department, first surfaced online, Shanghai-based news outlet Thepaper.cn reported on Tuesday.
The doctorate was awarded by the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing in 2002, and the news site said it confirmed that entire sections of the dissertation “Study on the Procedures of Preserving Civil Matters”, were directly copied from the 1995 editions of two law journals, Legal Commentary and the Annual of China Maritime Law, as well as another 1997 sociology paper published in the Ocean University of China’s journal.
A staff member at the China University of Political Science and Law’s graduate students’ quality supervision office promised to take the plagiarism allegations seriously, the report said.
Li could not be contacted for comment.
Li has held teaching and research roles at the university as well as Peking University and Beijing Normal University.