Editorial Policies

Justice Law is a peer-reviewed journal published by the Faculty of Law, Universitas Muhammadiyah Metro. The journal is committed to maintaining a professional, transparent, objective, and ethical editorial process in accordance with internationally recognized publishing standards and the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

All submitted manuscripts are processed under the following editorial policies.

1. Submission Policy

  • Manuscripts must be original works.
  • Manuscripts must not have been previously published or simultaneously submitted to another journal.
  • Submissions must fall within the journal's Aims and Scope.
  • Authors must follow the Author Guidelines and use the official journal template.

2. Initial Editorial Screening

Editors evaluate each submission for:

  • Relevance to the journal's scope.
  • Compliance with submission guidelines.
  • Completeness of metadata and required documents.
  • Academic quality.
  • Compliance with publication ethics.

The Editorial Board reserves the right to reject manuscripts at this stage (desk rejection).

3. Similarity Screening

All manuscripts are screened using plagiarism detection software such as Turnitin or iThenticate.

Justice Law generally requires a maximum similarity index of 20%, while excluding properly cited quotations, references, and legal documents from ethical violations.

4. Peer Review Policy

Eligible manuscripts undergo a Double-Blind Peer Review process involving at least two independent reviewers with expertise relevant to the manuscript.

5. Editorial Decision

Editorial decisions include:

  • Accept
  • Minor Revision
  • Major Revision
  • Reject

The Editor-in-Chief makes the final publication decision based on reviewers' recommendations and the Editorial Board's evaluation.

6. Revision Policy

Authors are required to revise their manuscripts in accordance with reviewers' comments within the specified deadline. Revised manuscripts may be sent back to reviewers when necessary.

7. Publication Ethics

Justice Law adheres to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and does not tolerate:

  • Plagiarism
  • Data fabrication
  • Data falsification
  • Duplicate publication
  • Citation manipulation
  • Undisclosed conflicts of interest

8. Conflict of Interest

Editors, reviewers, and authors must disclose any conflicts of interest that could influence the editorial process.

9. Confidentiality

All information related to submitted manuscripts, authors, reviewers, and editorial decisions is treated as confidential throughout the Double-Blind Peer Review process.

10. Corrections and Retractions

Justice Law may publish:

  • Corrections (Corrigenda)
  • Errata
  • Expressions of Concern
  • Retractions

when significant errors or ethical issues are identified after publication.

11. Editorial Rights

The Editorial Board reserves the right to:

  • Reject manuscripts that do not comply with the journal's policies.
  • Request revisions.
  • Edit language, formatting, and style without altering the scientific content.
  • Retract published articles in cases of proven publication misconduct.