Moratti medicine prolongs Aliaga's doctoral torture

A letter from David Aliaga, Calgary

Dear Editor,

I would like to inform you that I have at last received an official letter from Italian higher education minister Letizia Moratti [Doctoral torture, JUST Response, Dec 21 2002]. I found Mrs Moratti's letter on my return home to Canada from Chile, where I was visiting my father who is gravely ill. I enclose the Moratti letter (1) and note (2) in English translation for the convenience of your readers. 

I would like to thank JUST Response for the excellent job it has done in publicising my case to a worldwide audience. I am sure this will have contributed to bringing the necessary pressure to bear on the Italian ministry. 

Unfortunately, Mrs Moratti has chosen to listen to incompetent ministry officials who are giving the minister incomplete and erroneous or false information. I am in the process of writing another letter to Mrs Moratti to ask her for a review of my case that does not rely on ministry officials who have so far refused to be held accountable for their mistakes and who have so far clearly impeded a resolution of my case.

I would also like to launch an appeal to your readers to write letters of support to letters@justresponse.net, contact me personally (daliaga@ucalgary.ca) or write directly to the minister at MIUR (Letizia Moratti, Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca, Piazzale J.F. Kennedy 20, 00144 Roma EUR) on my behalf asking  for a full inquiry into my case.

1) Minister Moratti's letter to David Aliaga: 

The Minister of Education, Universities and Research , Rome, February 14, 2003 . Protocol: 6634

Dear Doctor Aliaga Rossel,

I respond to your letter in which you complain about how the title of Doctor of Research was denied to you.

In that regard I'm sending you a detailed response about your case, that the competent offices of this Ministry had sent me.

Letizia Moratti

Dr. David E. Aliaga Rossel, 83 Bearberry Cl. NW , Calgary, Canada

2) Minister Moratti's note to David Aliaga: 

On November 13th, 1990, upon the completion of Dr. David Aliaga Rossel’s doctorate of research programme (3rd Cycle), he was admitted to the final examination for the attainment of the title for Doctor of Research.

As a result of his application to this Ministry, exceptionally, he was granted an extension of a year for the presentation of his thesis (see verdict of Council of State, second Section. 29 January 1992, n. 1173/91).

On August 7 1991 Dr. Aliaga had the final examination with the national commission for the Ethnoanthropology group chosen for the year 1991. The commission was composed of different members from those chosen for the same group in the year 1990, this due to the norm, then in force, that the commissions for final examinations were to be renewed every year. Doctoral students, who for various reasons were granted an extension, had to discuss their thesis with the commission named for the successive cycle (see Council of  State judgement on this matter).

Therefore the change of the Commission is the direct consequence of the demand for an extension from Dr. Aliaga.

The national Commission, which had gathered on 7 August 1991 in order to examine Dr. Aliaga, expressed a negative judgment as a result of a deep examination of the work of the candidate, oral defense  elaborated by the candidate, as well as the presentation made from the Collegio dei Docenti (candidate's supervisory committee). The negative judgment expressed by the national commission was unanimous.

On the argument in question, and as a result of an analogous complaint made before by Dr. Aliaga and the copious correspondence that reached this Ministry from researchers and academics (even from abroad) who supported  Dr. Aliaga's cause, this ministry addressed two notes to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Also, the National University Council constituted an ad-hoc Commission for the examination of the issue, in the sitting of 6 May 1999, approving the same observations and conclusions formulated in the attached document.

As regards the norm in art. 6 comma 3 of the D.M. n. 224 of the 30 April 1999, which Dr. Aliaga made reference to in his letter of January 21 2003, this is applied exclusively to the doctorate of research programs instituted after the academic year 1999/2000 (15th cycle).

Web sites:

http://www.unica.it/libroaperto/Estero.htm

http://www.ucalgary.ca/~daliaga/Aliaga.html

http://www.dirittoefamiglia.it/Redazion/Lettere/Archivio%20Lettere/Alliaga.htm

Note: This letter was published by JUST Response on May 21 2003.

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