STUDENTŲ PROCEDŪRINIŲ TEISIŲ UŽTIKRINIMO TIRIANT AKADEMINĖS ETIKOS PAŽEIDIMĄ TEISINĖS PRIELAIDOS

Abstract

The article analyses the legal environment for granting procedural rights to students facing charges of a violation of academic ethics, particularly taking into account the particularities of the legal status of the Lithuanian higher education institutions (HEI). Lithuanian HEIs are not subjects of public administration, therefore they are not subjected to the requirements of the principle of good administration, which would accordingly guarantee a set of the main procedural rights to students. However, as procedural students’ rights may be regarded as standards of academic ethics, the obligation to guarantee the rights stems not only from the Constitution of Lithuania and other legal acts but also the mission of each HEI. Furthermore, the authors examine to which extent HEIs regulate the procedural rights in their internal legal acts. The systematic analysis of the regulation of selected Lithuanian universities discloses that students are granted some procedural rights (mostly the right to be informed of the suspicion and to participate in a hearing), but none of the legal acts analyzed is consistent and sufficiently detailed. This may be explained by a relatively low level of academic ethics culture in the country, the lack of scientific debate on the subject and poorly developed case-law regarding procedural rights of students.