Publication Ethics

The International Journal of Constitutional and Administrative Law (IJCAL) is committed to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics and academic integrity for all parties involved in the publication process, including authors, editors, reviewers, and the publisher. To promote responsible scholarly publishing, the journal adopts this Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement in accordance with the principles and guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

IJCAL expects all submissions to be original, ethically conducted, academically rigorous, and submitted in good faith. The journal does not tolerate plagiarism, data fabrication, data falsification, citation manipulation, redundant publication, improper authorship, or any other form of publication misconduct.

All manuscripts submitted to IJCAL are subject to an initial editorial screening, similarity checking, and a double-blind peer review process involving at least two independent reviewers. Editorial decisions are made on the basis of academic merit, relevance to the journal’s scope, originality, clarity of argument, and compliance with ethical and scholarly standards.

Duties of Editors

Editors are responsible for evaluating submitted manuscripts fairly, objectively, and solely on the basis of their academic merit, without discrimination on the grounds of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.

Editors must ensure that each manuscript is handled in accordance with the journal’s editorial policies, peer review procedures, and ethical standards. They are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and must not disclose any information about a manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Editors must take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of manuscripts involving plagiarism, redundant publication, citation manipulation, or other forms of unethical conduct. Where ethical concerns arise, editors will follow appropriate editorial procedures, including clarification, correction, retraction, or rejection, where necessary.

Editors must also avoid conflicts of interest in handling manuscripts. Any manuscript submitted by an editor, editorial board member, or reviewer of IJCAL must be managed by an independent editor who has no conflict of interest with the submitting author. Individuals directly involved in the manuscript must not participate in the editorial decision.

Duties of Reviewers

Reviewers assist editors in making editorial decisions and, through constructive comments, may help authors improve the quality of their manuscripts. Reviewers are expected to conduct their evaluations objectively, fairly, and professionally.

Reviewers must treat all manuscripts as confidential documents. They must not share, discuss, or use any part of the manuscript for personal advantage or for any purpose other than the review process.

Reviewers should evaluate manuscripts on the basis of originality, scholarly contribution, legal and analytical rigor, clarity of structure and argument, engagement with relevant literature, and relevance to the journal’s focus and scope. Reviewers should provide clear, reasoned, and constructive feedback to support editorial decision-making.

Reviewers must disclose any conflict of interest that may affect their impartiality, including personal, institutional, collaborative, competitive, or financial relationships with the author(s) or the subject matter of the manuscript. In such cases, the reviewer must notify the editor and withdraw from the review process.

Reviewers should also identify relevant published works not cited by the author(s) and notify the editor of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under review and other published works of which they are aware.

Duties of Authors

Authors must ensure that their submitted work is original, has not been published previously, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Manuscripts must accurately present the author’s research, analysis, and findings, and must contain sufficient references to permit others to verify the legal, conceptual, or empirical basis of the work.

Authors must properly acknowledge the work of others and cite relevant publications appropriately. Fraudulent statements, fabricated data, falsified information, plagiarism, and misappropriation of others’ work are unethical and unacceptable.

Authorship must be limited to those who have made a significant scholarly contribution to the manuscript. All persons who have made substantial contributions should be listed as co-authors, while those who contributed in other ways should be properly acknowledged. The corresponding author must ensure that all listed co-authors have approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission to the journal.

Authors must disclose any financial support, institutional support, or other potential conflicts of interest that may have influenced the preparation or substance of the manuscript.

If authors discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their submitted or published work, they are obliged to promptly notify the editor and cooperate in correcting or retracting the article where necessary.

Ethical Oversight and Research Integrity

Where relevant, authors are expected to ensure that their research has been conducted ethically and responsibly, including compliance with applicable legal, institutional, and professional standards. Any use of sensitive data, human participants, confidential documents, or other ethically significant materials must be handled in accordance with applicable ethical principles and legal requirements.

Appeals and Complaints

Authors may submit a reasoned appeal against an editorial decision if they believe that the decision was based on a factual misunderstanding, procedural irregularity, or demonstrable bias. Appeals must be submitted in writing to the Editorial Office and will be reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief or another designated editor not previously involved in the original decision. The journal reserves the right to reject appeals that are unsupported or purely argumentative.

Copyright and Licensing

All articles published in IJCAL are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

Under this license, authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication. Readers and users may read, download, copy, distribute, and adapt the published material for non-commercial purposes, provided that appropriate credit is given to the author(s) and to IJCAL as the original source of publication, and that any derivative work is distributed under the same license.

Final Statement

IJCAL is committed to maintaining a transparent, fair, and ethical publication process. The journal expects all participants in the publication process to act responsibly, honestly, and in accordance with internationally recognized principles of scholarly publishing ethics.