Justice minister denies plagiarism allegations

The newly-appointed justice minister, Tatana Malá, has denied allegations of plagiarism in connection with her university thesis.

Czech Radio reported earlier this week that Malá's thesis on family law, contained undeclared passages from a thesis by someone else, written at Masaryk University in Brno five years earlier. In one case, Malá even copied the original text along with two typing errors, Czech Radio said.

Malá denied that she had plagiarized the work, saying she had spent months of hard work on her thesis and had defended it successfully at her university.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš said the accusations were part of a campaign against her and argued that she should be given a chance to prove her worth as justice minister.