PhD student against university bureaucracy: a hearing at the Uppsala District Court

Forewarned is forearmed

My PhD employment was cancelled without notice by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in January 2012. More then two years I have been trying to find out what rights in fact a PhD student  has at SLU.

First, this issue was raised before the Swedish HigherEducation Authority. After one year of sluggish correspondence the answer was: foreign PhD student has no rights. (The details will be posted later.)

Then the matter was brought before the Uppsala District Court. The court proceeded with no hurry for the next one year but recently declared that is finally ready to make a decision. Hearings will be open for public. Since there will be a lot of useful information, which SLU usually never discloses, it might be useful for PhD student to hear it by themselves. Arm yourself with knowledge!

For example, did you know that:

• PhD position is a temporal employment (at least for the foreigners)
• Being a temporal employment it can be cancelled (or expired and not renewed) at any moment
• SLU is not obligated to inform a temporal employee about termination of his employment
• An appeal against termination of the temporal employment can be done only within two weeks
• Neither a supervisor nor SLU have any formal obligations before a student
• A person can be enrolled into studies without him knowing about it
• SLU is not obligated to present evidences; its word is beyond doubts
• Swedish law and local SLU regulations are written to deceive those gullible idealists who really believe that they might have rights

It is only a part of the questions that will be discussed at the court dispute.

The hearings will take place on Monday, 

March 24^th, 2014 at 9:00 am

Room 3, Courtrooms, floor 1

Kungsgatan 49, Uppsala District Court

Languages: English / Swedish

Information about any changes in the schedule will be posted here

March 25, 2014

The decision of the Uppsala District Court will be announced on April 14^th, 2014 and posted here on receipt. On April 16th I was informed that the decision will be made on April 28th, 2014.

Monetary claims in total were: 2822000 SEK 

All documents of the litigation will be posted as a manual for the next PhD students who dare to fight for their rights. So they will not make my mistakes. 

The only thing I want to say right now is about the student union(s) and so called student ombudsman. From my point of view it was their direct responsibility to be on the court hearings. They did not come. Now, my dear PhD students, you can see clear that student ombudsman and student union are only simulacra. Never trust them and never hope that they can help you.