Pro-abortion candidate for German Federal Constitutional Court judge withdraws not because of pressure from Catholic Church but because of plagiarism allegations

She announced her withdrawal from the contest today.  Background below. Several Cathcon stories about the division within the German Bishops' Conference over her appointment 

New allegations against Brosius-Gersdorf – University initiates investigation

Brosius-Gersdorf under fire: According to a plagiarism expert, the lawyer did not write her dissertation alone. 

The lawyer is defending herself against the new accusations. Her lawyers call them "defamatory accusations" and has announced legal action.

Following new allegations against Federal Constitutional Court candidate Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf, the University of Hamburg has initiated further investigations into her dissertation. The background to this is a report by Austrian plagiarism investigator Stefan Weber, who claims to have found evidence of ghostwriting by Brosius-Gersdorf's husband. The lawyer denies the allegations.

A university spokesperson confirmed in response to an inquiry from the AFP news agency that the ombudsman's office had received corresponding information. These are now being examined internally "very carefully." Brosius-Gersdorf submitted her dissertation to the University of Hamburg in 1997.

91 passages allegedly originate from her husband

Weber claims to have found 91 passages that "with a very high degree of probability" originate from the legal scholar Hubertus Gersdorf. These are passages that show parallels to her husband's previous publications. "Here, another author interfered with the dissertation," Weber told the TV channel Welt.

The lawyer contradicts this: "The dissertation was not written in part by Professor Gersdorf (...)," the Bonn-based law firm Redeker Sellner Dahs stated. The allegations are "baseless" and "defamatory." They are considering legal action against Weber. The mere fact that she quoted her husband's texts does not justify suspicion of ghostwriting.

Election of judge in the Bundestag already failed

Back in July, Weber had made allegations of plagiarism against Brosius-Gersdorf. At the time, the SPD politician commissioned a brief report from a Stuttgart law firm that rejected the allegations. Nevertheless, Brosius-Gersdorf's election as a constitutional judge in the Bundestag failed – partly due to reservations from the CDU/CSU.

The University of Hamburg is currently reviewing both the old and new leads. A date for the results has not yet been set.

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