Publication ethics and malpractice statement

based on the Publishing Ethics Resource Kit by Elsevier and COPE Code of Conduct

Duties and responsibilities of Editors

Editors should be responsible for everything published in their journals. They should strive to meet the needs of readers and authors; constantly improve the journal; ensure the quality of the material they publish; maintain the integrity of the academic record; always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed. Editors should take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material they publish. Editors’ decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication should be based only on the paper’s importance, originality, and clarity, and the study’s relevance to the remit of the journal. Editors should ensure that research material they publish conforms to internationally accepted ethical guidelines, should protect the confidentiality of individual information. Whenever it is recognised that a significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distorted report has been published, it must be corrected promptly and with due prominence. An editor must not use unpublished information in the editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.

Duties and responsibilities of Authors

Authors should present an objective discussion of the significance of research work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable. Review articles should also be objective, comprehensive, and accurate accounts of the state of the art. The authors should ensure that their work is entirely original, and if the work and/or words of others have been used, this has been appropriately acknowledged. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Authors should not submit articles describing essentially the same research to more than one journal. The corresponding author should ensure that there is a full consensus of all co-authors in approving the final version of the paper and its submission for publication.

Duties and responsibilities of Reviewers

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviews should be conducted objectively, and observations should be formulated clearly with supporting arguments, so that authors can use them for improving the paper. 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 himself from the review process. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Rules and Regulations of the Review Process

1. Articles (materials) shall be submitted electronically via electronic mail ruzh @ usla.ru in a single copy that is thoroughly proofread by the author (authors); the author’s (authors’) background information; the annotation in Russian and in English; key words in Russian and in English, and the other necessary documents.

2. Editors reserve the right to return articles (materials) that do not meet the requirements of Journal to the articles (materials). Specific directions for preparing articles can be found on the Journal’s website electronic.ruzh.org in the Section «Information for Authors» and in the current issues of the Journal.

3. Upon submission the editor shall register an article in the Registration Journal specifying the date of a paper’s submission, title, name of the author (authors) and the author’s (authors’) place of work. Simultaneously, an individual registration number shall be assigned to the article. Moreover, the abovementioned information shall be added to the Journal’s data base.

4. The Editor-in-Chief shall refer the article for review to an Editorial board member, responsible for the corresponding research area or the scientific discipline. In case the the Editorial board member is absent or the article is submitted by an Editorial board member the Editor-in-Chief shall refer the material for review to the experts who are not part of the Editorial board (External reviewers (see para. 9)).

5. A Reviewer shall assess the article within the period of 2 weeks starting from the article’s receipt. Upon expiration of this period the Reviewer shall send the reasonable rejection to review the article or the referee report to Editor’s office (via e-mail or regular mail).

6. The standard review form to draw a referee report (Appendix 1) is preferable. Reviewers shall rate submitted papers into three categories: “Recommend the article to be published”; “Recommend the article to be published: follow-up revision needed / article is subject to the reviewer’s commentaries”; and “Discommend the article to be published”. Decisions “Recommend the article to be published: follow-up revision needed / article is subject to the reviewer’s commentaries” or “Discommend the article to be published” shall be reasonably argued.

7. After receiving the referee reports, the articles shall be discussed at the Editorial board meeting and the final decision on their publishing shall be made. According to the decision, responsible secretary shall send acknowledgements to the authors (via e-mail or regular mail). The acknowledgement shall include general assessment of the article, recommendations for revision (in case the article is recommended to be published after follow-up revision / subject to the reviewer’s commentaries), and the reasons of rejection if the article is not accepted.

8. After the follow-up revision the submitted article shall be assessed according to the standard procedure (paras. 4-7). The responsible secretary shall make a record in the Registration Journal specifying the date of submission of the article’s new edition.

9. External reviewers / experts can be engaged in cases as follows: absence of the Editorial board member in a certain field; an Editorial board member responds negatively to the request for review; the Editorial board disagrees with the opinion of the Editorial board member expressed in the referee report; the article is submitted by an Editorial board member. At a regular meeting Editorial board shall make a decision to refer to a scientist who has expertise and publications in the particular scientific area. On behalf of the Editorial board this scientist shall be requested to make a review. The article, a concise author’s background information, the standard review form to draw a referee report shall be attached to the request.

Peer Review Process

Electronic Supplement to the Russian Juridical Journal considers every submission. The board of editors carefully reviews the articles based on topic, level of academic content and style. The board of editors then submits the most promising articles to our referee committee. This decision is made based on a recommendation by one of the editors and a vote by the entire board.

We apply a double-blind peer review, meaning that the author's name and affiliation are not revealed to the referee and the referee's name and affiliation are not revealed to the author.

Our referee committee includes professors and practitioners who are experts in the field of law. They will review the article and decide whether it is fit to publish in our academic journal. They will base this decision based on the following criteria:

Scope
Accurate content
Structure
Academic language
References
Contribution to academia
The author's capability to distinguish facts from opinions

The final decision to publish is made by the editorial board, but no article will be published unless approved by the referee board. If revisions to an article are requested, a final decision on publication will only be made after the revisions have been submitted.
We maintain contact with the authors by email and we expect authors to be available during the review process.

Русский