1. REVIEW PROCEDURE

1.1. Reviewers

The journal “Archive for Legal and Social Sciences” applies the procedure of double anonymous reviews of all papers. Each handwriting is reviewed by at least two reviewers. The reviewers act independently of one another, and their identity is unknown to one another. The reviewers are selected exclusively as to whether they have relevant knowledge for evaluating the manuscript. Any suggestions of the reviewers by the authors of the manuscript are disregarded.

The aim of the review is to assist the editorial staff in deciding whether the paper should be accepted or rejected. The goal is also to improve the quality of manuscripts in the communication process with editors, authors and other reviewers.

1.2. Review process

Manuscripts are referred to the review only after the initial assessment whether, given the form and thematic scope, they are similar to publication in the journal. Special attention has the fact that the initial assessment does not last longer than is necessary. In regular circumstances, the review process lasts no more than four weeks, and only up to three months.

During the review process, the editor in chief may request the author to provide additional information, including primary information, if they are necessary for the manuscript. The editor and reviewers must keep such information confidential and may not use them for other purposes.

1.3. Dispute resolution

If the author has serious and founded objections to the review account, the editorial board checks whether the review is objective and whether it meets academic standards. If there is a doubt about objectivity or review quality, the editor engages additional reviewers.

Additional reviewers are also engaged in cases where reviewers’ decisions (refuse / accept) are mutually contradictory or otherwise irreconcilable.

The final decision on the acceptance of the manuscript for publication is made exclusively by the editorial board.

  1. RESPONSIBILITY

2.1. Responsibility of the author

The authors guarantee that the manuscript represents their original contribution, that it has not been published before and is not considered for publication elsewhere. At the same time, the lecture of the same manuscript in several journals is a violation of ethical standards, which excludes it from further consideration for publishing in the journal. A work already published elsewhere can not, as a rule, be reprinted in the journal “Archives of Legal and Social Sciences”.

Authors bear all responsibility for the entire contents of the manuscript. The manuscript must not contain ungrounded or unlawful allegations, nor violate the rights of others.

Authors are obliged to ensure that their authorial team listed in the manuscript includes all and only those persons who significantly contributed to the contents of the manuscript. If other persons participated in the important aspects of the research project and preparation of the manuscript, their contribution should be indicated in the footnote or a special note (Thank you-note).

The author is obliged to mention in his remark the name and code of the scientific research project in which the paper was created, as well as the full name of the financing institution. If that paper under the same or similar title has been exhibited at a gathering in the form of an oral announcement, the details should be given in the same place.

The authors are obliged to quote sources that have significantly influenced the content of research and manuscripts. Parts of the manuscript, including text, equations, images or tables, which are literally taken from other works, must be clearly marked with a special note, for example, quotation marks with a precise tag of the download site (page number) or, if more extensive, given in a separate paragraph.

Full references to all quotes in the text, must be listed in a separate section (References) in an uniform manner, in accordance with the quoting style used by the journal. In the References section, only quoted sources are listed, and not other sources used in the preparation of the manuscript.

If the authors disclose an important mistake in their paper after its publication, they are obliged to immediately notify the editor in chief (or publisher) about this and to cooperate on the withdrawal or rectification of the work.

It is the author’s duty to indicate in the manuscript whether they are in financial or any other important conflict of interest that could affect their results or interpretation of the results.

By handing the manuscript, the authors undertake to respect the editorial policy of the journal “Archives for Legal and Social Sciences“.

2.2. Responsibility of the editorial board

The editorial board of the journal makes the final decision about which manuscripts will be published. Decisions are made exclusively based on the value of the manuscript. They must be free from racial, gender, religious, ethnic or political prejudice. When making a decision to publish the paper or not, the editorial board is guided by editorial policy, taking into account legal regulations related to defamation, copyright infringement and plagiarism.

The editorial board members, including the editor in chief, must not be in conflict with interest in relation to the manuscripts which they are considering. Members assumed that someone might consider themselves to be in conflict of interest do not participate in the decision-making process on a particular manuscript.

Manuscripts are kept as confidential material. The information and ideas contained in manuscripts must not be used for personal purposes without the explicit written permission of the author.

The editor in chief and the editorial board members are obliged to take all reasonable measures that the authors / reviewers remain anonymous during and after the evaluation process in accordance with the procedure in use.

2.3. Responsibility of reviewers

Reviewers are obliged to submit to the editor in a qualified and timely manner the evaluation of the scientific, or professional value of the manuscript. The reviewer takes special care of the actual contribution and originality of the manuscript. The review must be completely objective. The reviewer’s court must be clear and substantiated by arguments.

The reviewers evaluate manuscripts in relation to content compliance with the profile of the journal, the importance and usefulness of the content, the adequacy of the applied methods, the scientific value of the information contained, the style of presentation, etc. The review has a standard format that includes assessments of individual dimensions of work, general grade and final recommendation.

The reviewer must not be in conflict with interests with the authors or research financier. If there is such a conflict, the reviewer is obliged to inform the editor in a timely manner. The reviewer does not accept reviews for papers outside the field for which is competent.

Reviewers should alert the editor in chief if they have reasonable doubt or knowledge of possible violations of ethical standards by the author of the manuscript. They should also recognize the relevant sources that are not considered in the paper. They may recommend quoting certain references, but not requiring the quotation of papers published in the journal “Archives of Legal and Social Sciences” or their works, if there is no justification for it.

The reviewers are expected to improve the quality of their manuscripts with their suggestions. If they find that paper deserves publication with some corrections, they are required to specify the way in which it can be achieved.

Manuscripts sent to the reviewer must be considered confidential documents. Reviewers may not use material from the manuscript for their research without the explicit written permission of the author.

  1. THE ETHNICITY OF PUBLISHING

3.1. Solving unethical procedures

Every individual or institution may at any time report to the editor and/or editorial board about the violations of ethical standards and other irregularities, and to provide credible information/evidence to initiate the investigation. The procedure for checking the evidence is as follows:

  • The editor in chief makes a decision to initiate an investigation;
  • During this process, all evidence is considered to be confidential material and presented only to those persons directly involved in the case;
  • The suspects are given an opportunity to respond to the prosecution’s allegations;
  • If it is determined that an irregularity has actually occurred, it is assessed whether it is a minor offense or gross violation of ethical standards.

Minor offenses, without consequences on integrity of paper and journal, for example in the case of misunderstanding or misapplication of publicity standards, are resolved in direct communication with authors and reviewers, without involving third parties, in some way, for example:

  • A warning letter is sent to the authors and/or reviewers;
  • A paper update is announced, e.g. in the case where the sources referenced in the list refer to the sources that are quoted in the text in the prescribed manner;
  • An eratum is published, e.g. if it turns out that the mistake was made by the editorial board.

In case of gross violation of ethical standards, the editorial board may take various measures:

  • Publishes a statement or an editorial in which the case is described;
  • Officially informs the affiliate organization of the author/reviewer;
  • Withdrawing the published paper in the manner described under the withdrawal procedure;
  • Imposes ban on publishing in the journal for a certain period of time;
  • Present the case to competent organizations and regulatory bodies in order to undertake measures under their jurisdiction.

These measures may be applied individually or simultaneously. In the process of resolving the case, relevant expert organizations, bodies or individuals are consulted as needed.

3.2. Preventing plagiarism

Journal “Archive for Legal and Social Sciences” does not publish plagiarized papers. The editorial board considers that plagiarism, or the taking of other ideas, words or other forms of creative contribution, and their representation as there is a gross violation of scientific and publishing ethics. Plagiarism may include copyright infringement, which is punishable by law.

Plagiarism includes:

  • Literally (word by word) or almost literally downloaded or conceived, to conceal sources, paraphrase parts of texts of other authors without clearly identifying the source, as described under the Author’s Responsibilities;
  • Copy equations, data, or tables from other documents without proper source designation and/or without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.

A manuscript in which clear indications of plagiarism are established will automatically be rejected. If the plagiarism is revealed in the paper already published, the paper will be revoked in accordance with the procedure described in the withdrawal procedure.

3.3. The withdrawal procedure

In case of violation of the rights of publisher, copyright holders or the authors themselves, the publication of the same manuscript in several journals, false authorship, plagiarism, manipulation of data for the purpose of fraud or any other misuse, the published paper must be revoked.

The paper can also be revoked in order to correct serious and numerous defects that can not be covered by publishing an update. The revocation shall be published by the editorial board, the author(s) or both parties by mutual agreement.

The revoke has the form of a separate paper that is displayed in the contents of the booklet and is classified by an editorial as Revocation or Retraction. In SCIndex as a full-text database, a two-way link (HTML link) is established between the original work and the retraction. The original work is still kept in an unchanged form, with the watermark on the PDF document on each page indicating that the article has been withdrawn.

  1. OPEN ACCESS

4.1. Open Access Policy

The journal “Archives for Legal and Social Sciences” is published in the “open access”. All its content is available to users – free. Users can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search full text articles, and to establish HTML links to them, without the obligation to seek the consent of the author or publisher.

The right to use content without written consent does not relieve users of the obligation to quote the contents of the journal in accordance with the applicable rules.

4.2. Cost collection to authors

Journal “Archive for Legal and Social Sciences” does not charge publication costs to either authors or third parties. They are free, both for the services of manuscript reporting and processing, as well as for the publication of articles. There are no hidden costs.

  1. COPYRIGHT

5.1. Copyright

Authors retain copyrights on posted articles and give the publisher a non-exclusive right to publish the article, in case of further use of the article, be listed as his first publisher, and to distribute the article in all forms and media.

5.2. Self-archiving policy

Authors are allowed to deposit the published version of the paper into an institutional or thematic repository or to publish on personal web pages (including social network profiles) on the site of the institution in which they are employed, at any time after publication in the journal.

Authors are required to provide a full bibliographic description of the article published in this journal (authors, title, title of the journal, volume, notebook, pagination) and link to the DOI code of that article.

5.3. Disclaimer of the responsibility

The views expressed in the published papers do not express the views of the editor and members of the editorial staff of the journal. Authors take legal and moral responsibility for ideas outlined in their papers. The publisher will not bear any liability in case of any claims for damages.