The editorial ethics of the Journal of International Legal Communication is based on the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
DUTIES OF EDITORS
Publication decisions. The Editorial Board is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The Editorial Board will be guided by the policies of the journal and constrained by legal requirements related to libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. Members of the Editorial Board will confer and refer to reviewers recommendations in making this decision.
Equality. An editor, member of the editorial board or reviewer must evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, political philosophy, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, citizenship, or religious belief of the authors.
Confidentiality. The editorial board guarantees confidentiality, that is, it undertakes not to disclose information about the given manuscript to anyone other than the respective authors, reviewers, other editorial consultants and, if necessary, the publisher.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s, reviewer’s or any other reader’s own research without the expressed written consent of the author.
The editorial ethics of the Journal of International Legal Communication is based on the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
DUTIES OF REVIEWERS
Contribution to Editorial Decisions. Reviewers assist the editorial board in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communication during the open review process with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper.
Qualification of Reviewers. Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse themselves from the review process. The editorial board is responsible for ensuring the promptness of responses in the open review process.
Confidentiality. Any manuscripts received for review in the open review process are subjected to the criteria of enhancing their rationality through the mutual rational controls of critical discussion.
Establishing Standards of Objectivity through Critical Discussion. Reviews should be conducted objectively. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments in the spirit of enhancing the quality of the paper through the mutual rational controls of critical discussion.
Acknowledgement of Sources. References to the ideas of others should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
Disclosure and Conflict of Interest. Information or ideas obtained through peer review must only be used with the explicit agreement of the participants in the peer review.
OBLIGATIONS OF THE AUTHORS
All texts sent to the Journal of International Legal Communication should be original and independent works of the Authors. In order to eliminate the possibility of plagiarism, they are checked using the anti-plagiarism program. The Author is obliged to inform the Editorial Board about all entities that have participated in the creation of the work and about the sources of its financing. If the Author detects any errors, they are obliged to immediately report them to the Editorial Board. The Author should respond to reviewers’ comments and may appeal against editorial decisions.
In a situation where they do not agree with the comments contained in the review, they should provide the Editorial Board with important comments and explanations of their opinions.
Plagiarism – rules of conduct
The editors of the Journal of International Legal Communication do not accept any symptoms of plagiarism. The Author is obliged to indicate all data and publications which they used to create the work. Any suspicion of plagiarism is subject to examination by the Editorial Board, and after it is found appropriate procedures are implemented. In the event of confirmation of evident plagiarism, the Editorial Board reserves that it also notifies the Author’s superiors about it.
Author of the text
Co-authorship of the article should be limited only to people who contributed significantly to its creation. In the case of co-authorship, the corresponding Author submits a declaration to the Editorial Board indicating exactly the type and scope of contribution of individual Authors to the development of the article, its assumptions, research methods, and interpretation of the research results. The editors of the Journal of International Legal Communication do not accept any symptoms of such phenomena as guest authorship and courtesy authorship (it is recommended to transfer the name to the thanks section) or ghost authorship (in case of detection, it is recommended to add the Author to the list of the authors). Each researcher mentioned as the author of the work must have real and undeniable contribution to its creation. Requests to change the list of authors are allowed, while the Editors reserve the right to thoroughly investigate each case of this type.
No duplication of publication
The Editorial Board of the Journal of International Legal Communication rejects texts that have already been published in other magazines or books, or which have already been submitted to another editorial board for publication. The editors reserve the right to examine such status of the article at every stage of the publishing process, and in the event of irregularities, they will commence their activities in accordance with COPE’s recommendations.
Data falsification
The reliability of scientific research results is one of the basic values that the Editorial Board of the Journal of International Legal Communication esteems, promotes and protects. All symptoms of unreliability, and even more explicit falsification and fabrication of research results or sources used will be strongly condemned and will result in informing the Author’s employer about them.
Reviewing papers
Each reviewer performs their work anonymously, and their reviews should be objective and in accordance with the principles of scientific reliability. The reviewed text should remain secret and its content should not be used by the reviewer until its publication. Criticism referring directly to the author is inappropriate, author and reviewer should not be in relationships that could affect the shape of the review.
Conflict of interest
An identified or reported conflict of interest results in the suspension of editorial work on a given text until the matter is clarified by the Editorial Board of the Journal of International Legal Communication.
The conflict of interest should be reported to the Editorial Board by the Author, who believes that in their opinion, the roles performed by them may influence or may be considered by third parties as influencing their objectivity when conducting research or presenting its results. A conflict of interest may take place in the case of the Author’s connection with a unit (institution, enterprise or public office) that is directly interested in or benefits from adopting a specific interpretation of the law. It applies to the connection consisting of:- work in a given unit, also on the basis of a specific task contract or a mandate contract, paid representation as a proxy or acting on its behalf or as an expert for the unit (during the work on the text or in the last 3 years), in particular when the text submitted for printing is a repetition or a modified version of a pleading or an opinion prepared for a given unit;
– the Author’s participation in the issuance of a judgment or decision of a court or other authority, which are then analyzed in the submitted scientific publication;
– using the funds of a given unit to conduct research – both being the subject of a published article, as well as other past (conducted within the last 3 years) or currently conducted research, including coverage of publication costs.
Conflict of interest publishing procedure:
1. When submitting texts to the journal, the Author informs the Editorial Board that they believe that in their case there may be a conflict of interest in the sense described above.
2. The occurrence of a conflict of interest does not mean that the prepared text cannot or should not be published, provided, however, that the indicated connection with units does not affect the reliability and correctness of the scientific evidence and the quality of the research presented in the scientific publication.
3. The reviewer should be informed about the fact of reporting a conflict of interest (without revealing its nature). Thanks to this, in the review, they will be able to assess whether – despite the reported conflict – the text has been prepared scientifically and contains objective analyses and research results.
4. The Editors reserve the right to ask the Author to provide a declaration regarding the lack of a conflict of interest.
5. Failure to disclose information about a conflict of interest is a violation of the principles of ethics and good scientific practice.