Embattled minister speaks for the record about his academic résumé, experience (05/01/05)

Embattled minister speaks for the record about his academic résumé, experience

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - In an exclusive interview with The Ukrainian Weekly, Ukraine's Justice Minister Roman Zvarych acknowledged that he does not have a master's degree in philosophy or any other subject from Columbia University.

Instead, he claimed to have an academic degree "equivalent to that of a master's," or a degree "of higher academic learning," as he put it.

The convoluted, partial admission comes after The Weekly confirmed with Columbia University last week that Mr. Zvarych did not complete any degree there.

Mr. Zvarych spoke with The Weekly on Thursday, April 28 - 10 days after the newspaper first called his office at the Ministry of Justice in an attempt to get his side of the story.

Ever since 1998 Mr. Zvarych has claimed in the annual editions of Who's Who in Ukraine that he earned a master's degree in philosophy from Columbia University.

He repeated that claim to Ukrainian media as recently as April 19, and he made similar claims in campaign fliers distributed when he ran for the position of national deputy. One such campaign flier, printed sometime in 1995-1996, states "finished Columbia University."

"I never finished my doctoral studies and I never completed my studies which I began in 1976 [at Columbia]," Mr. Zvarych told The Weekly. "And I never completed the process of acquiring some kind of higher education degree on the level of doctor."

It remains unclear whether Mr. Zvarych's lies will cost him his job as justice minister.

At a press conference held after a Cabinet of Ministers meeting on April 27, after several news organizations had already reported Mr. Zvarych's lies, President Viktor Yushchenko declined comment on the scandal surrounding his justice minister.

Mr. Zvarych's chances of staying on as justice minister are aided by the fact that the Ukrainian media have largely steered clear of reporting his deceit, with the notable exception of the Internet newspaper Ukrainska Pravda, whose Washington correspondent Luba Shara broke the story on April 14.

Seated in his carpeted office and lighting one Marlboro Light cigarette after another, Mr. Zvarych calmly made consistent eye contact as he began to untangle his web of lies and embellishments.

Outside, loud drumming reverberated off the Justice Ministry's walls as Pora supporters banged large metal tubs in protest against Mr. Zvarych's decision to deny the group registration as a political party.

Their banners read: "Zvarych lies" and "Zvarych should resign."

During the interview, Mr. Zvarych backed off many of the claims he reported in his biographical submissions to Who's Who in Ukraine in 1998 and 2003.

Who's Who in Ukraine is a critical source of information to Verkhovna Rada and Cabinet of Ministers employees, as the Ukrainian government pays its publisher, Kyiv Informatsia Servis (KIS), to provide the biographical information for an Intranet database.

Mr. Zvarych said he studied at Manhattan College in Riverdale, N.Y., between 1971 and 1976, starting out in engineering before switching to studies in political science and philosophy. He said he earned a bachelor's degree.

The Weekly was not able to verify with Manhattan College whether Mr. Zvarych attended there or graduated.

After studying at Manhattan College, he said he spent three years studying at Columbia University's School of International Studies.

The Weekly and the Associated Press each independently confirmed with Columbia University that Mr. Zvarych was enrolled there between fall 1976 and spring 1978.

When handed his Who's Who in Ukraine submission form to examine, Mr. Zvarych corrected his own claim that he was an assistant professor at Columbia University. He said: "I didn't have a title. I was an assistant. I had the possibility for seven or eight years of delivering lectures. This wasn't paid work. This was simply scholarly satisfaction that I gained for the scholarly preparation at Columbia University for my goal, which was the doctorate."

Mr. Zvarych then repeated the admission that he never wrote a candidate's dissertation or a doctoral thesis, describing the paper instead as a preparatory work after he switched his scholarly track from international studies to philosophy.

Mr. Zvarych had claimed in his Who's Who biographies starting in 1994 that he wrote a "candidate's dissertation" about Plato.

Backing off his repeated claims that he was a New York University professor between 1983 and 1991, Mr. Zvarych acknowledged that he was a "lecturer."

Josh Taylor, an NYU spokesman, told The Weekly last week that Mr. Zvarych was a "part-time lecturer" between 1989 and 1991 at NYU's School of Continuing and Professional Studies.

However, Mr. Zvarych said that all his students referred to him as a professor and that all his letters from the university were addressed to "Prof. Roman Zvarych."

"I don't want to say I was a New York [University] professor, because that would lead someone to believe that I had an academic degree," Mr. Zvarych said. "However the title of professor, of course, was attributed to me inasmuch as it was tied to the position that I had. It was not an academic degree from NYU. It was only a title."

Mr. Zvarych also said he has no formal legal education.

He has claimed that he practiced law in Ukraine, an assertion he supports by referring to his background as a national deputy for six years, which he said qualifies him to be Ukraine's minister of justice. While a national deputy, Mr. Zvarych served on several committees that worked with legal matters. He said he wrote and co-authored several bills.

After being elected as a national deputy in 1998, Mr. Zvarych said he served on the Verkhovna Rada's Committee on Legal Reform for two years. According to his biography, he also served on a temporary special committee for the preparation and advance examination of the new edition of the civil code project starting in October 1998.

Mr. Zvarych also said he was vice-chairman of the Committee on European Integration and that he considers himself an expert in European law.

Committee work helped him gain "quite a lot of legal knowledge," Mr. Zvarych said. He added that his experience gives him the confidence to have a dialogue on jurisprudence with any lawyer.

"My work in the Verkhovna Rada during the third and fourth convocations gives me the foundation to say that, in the present day, I'm not only a lawyer, but not a bad lawyer," Mr. Zvarych said.

"If there are those lawyers who believe I don't have the relevant qualifications, of course that will be the prerogative of the president to decide and make the conclusions relevant to the situation," Mr. Zvarych said.

As for his claim in The Ukrainian Weekly in May 1998 that he had earned a Ph.D., Mr. Zvarych said he deeply regrets if he said something that led the reporter to think that he had earned a doctoral degree from Columbia University.

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