Publication Ethics

JLSPA: Journal of Law, Social, and Public Affairs is a peer-reviewed and open-access scholarly journal published by GRM Academic Press, an academic publisher managed by PT Global Research Media Group.

This publication ethics statement serves as a code of conduct for all parties involved in the publication process of the journal, including the publisher, journal management, editors, reviewers, and authors. The journal is committed to maintaining high standards of integrity, transparency, accountability, and ethical conduct in scholarly publishing.

The code of ethics for scholarly publication upholds three fundamental ethical principles: neutrality, which means being free from conflicts of interest in publication management; fairness, which means giving authorship rights only to individuals who have made legitimate scholarly contributions; and honesty, which means being free from plagiarism, duplication, fabrication, falsification, manipulation, and other forms of academic misconduct.

This publication ethics policy refers to the Regulation of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) Number 5 of 2014 concerning the Code of Ethics for Scientific Publication and generally recognized principles of ethical scholarly publishing.

Duties and Responsibilities of the Journal Management

The journal management is responsible for:

  1. determining the journal name, scientific scope, publication frequency, and accreditation status, where applicable;

  2. determining and maintaining the membership of the Editorial Board;

  3. defining the professional relationship among the publisher, editors, reviewers, authors, and other relevant parties;

  4. respecting and protecting confidential information related to authors, editors, reviewers, and other contributors;

  5. implementing applicable norms and regulations concerning intellectual property rights, copyright, and scholarly publication;

  6. reviewing journal policies periodically and communicating them clearly to authors, editors, reviewers, and readers;

  7. preparing and implementing codes of conduct for editors and reviewers;

  8. publishing the journal regularly according to its stated publication schedule;

  9. ensuring adequate resources to support the sustainability and quality of journal publication;

  10. developing academic cooperation, professional networks, indexing, dissemination, and journal development strategies; and

  11. preparing and maintaining administrative documents, legal permissions, and other relevant legal aspects of journal management.

Duties and Responsibilities of Editors

Editors are responsible for:

  1. meeting the academic and publication needs of readers and authors;

  2. continuously improving the scientific and editorial quality of the journal;

  3. implementing an objective and appropriate editorial process to ensure the quality of published manuscripts;

  4. protecting academic freedom and freedom of scholarly expression within the journal's scope and ethical standards;

  5. maintaining the integrity of authors' academic records and the scholarly publication process;

  6. issuing corrections, clarifications, expressions of concern, retractions, or apologies when necessary;

  7. being responsible for the editorial style, consistency, and format of published manuscripts, while the scientific content and statements contained in manuscripts remain the responsibility of the authors;

  8. actively seeking input from authors, readers, reviewers, and members of the Editorial Board to improve journal quality;

  9. encouraging periodic evaluation of journal policies, processes, and publication quality;

  10. supporting initiatives to prevent errors and misconduct in research and publication, including requesting research ethics approval or other relevant ethical documentation where required;

  11. supporting initiatives to increase awareness and understanding of publication ethics among authors, reviewers, and researchers;

  12. reviewing the effects of editorial policies on authors and reviewers and improving such policies when necessary;

  13. maintaining openness toward new ideas, arguments, theoretical perspectives, methods, and findings that may differ from personal or institutional views;

  14. avoiding personal, institutional, financial, political, ideological, academic, or other interests that may compromise editorial independence and objectivity; and

  15. providing authors with reasonable opportunities to revise and improve manuscripts in accordance with reviewers' recommendations and the journal's publication standards.

Editorial decisions must be based on the scholarly merit, originality, relevance, methodological quality, ethical compliance, and suitability of the manuscript to the journal's focus and scope without discrimination based on the authors' institutional affiliation, nationality, gender, religion, political orientation, or other irrelevant personal characteristics.

Duties and Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers are responsible for:

  1. reviewing manuscripts assigned by the editor and providing objective recommendations as a basis for editorial decisions;

  2. declining to review manuscripts when they lack sufficient expertise or have direct or indirect conflicts of interest;

  3. maintaining the confidentiality of manuscripts and not disseminating manuscript content, review reports, comments, recommendations, or unpublished findings to unauthorized parties;

  4. providing objective, constructive, scholarly, and respectful criticism, suggestions, comments, and recommendations to improve manuscript quality;

  5. avoiding personal criticism of authors and focusing their assessment on the scholarly content of the manuscript;

  6. identifying significant published works relevant to the manuscript that have not been appropriately acknowledged or cited;

  7. informing the editor of suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, data manipulation, citation manipulation, or other potential publication misconduct;

  8. re-evaluating revised manuscripts when requested by the editor; and

  9. completing reviews within the time specified by the journal and in accordance with scientific principles, publication ethics, and the journal's reviewer guidelines.

Reviewers should evaluate, where relevant, the originality of the study, theoretical framework, research methods, validity of data and analysis, interpretation of findings, consistency of conclusions, adequacy of references, contribution to knowledge, and relevance to the fields of law, social sciences, political science, public administration, public policy, governance, or public affairs.

Duties and Responsibilities of Authors

Authors are responsible for:

  1. ensuring that all individuals listed as authors meet appropriate authorship criteria and have made genuine scholarly contributions to the manuscript;

  2. ensuring that individuals who have contributed substantially to the research are appropriately acknowledged and that individuals without significant contributions are not listed as authors;

  3. taking collective responsibility for the content of the manuscript, including the research design, methods, data, analysis, interpretation, findings, arguments, conclusions, and supporting information;

  4. presenting research results accurately, objectively, honestly, and transparently without fabrication, falsification, manipulation, or intentional misrepresentation;

  5. providing sufficient methodological information to enable readers to understand and, where appropriate, evaluate or replicate the research;

  6. properly acknowledging and citing ideas, theories, data, documents, laws, policies, publications, and other sources used in preparing the manuscript;

  7. disclosing all sources of financial support, research funding, institutional assistance, and other relevant support;

  8. disclosing any potential conflicts of interest that may influence the research or interpretation of its findings;

  9. explaining relevant limitations of the study;

  10. obtaining ethical approval, informed consent, research permission, or other relevant authorization when required by the nature of the research;

  11. protecting the confidentiality, privacy, dignity, and rights of research participants when applicable;

  12. responding to reviewers' and editors' comments professionally, appropriately, and within the requested timeframe;

  13. immediately notifying the editor if significant errors or inaccuracies are discovered in a submitted or published manuscript;

  14. informing the editor appropriately if they intend to withdraw a manuscript from the publication process; and

  15. declaring that the submitted manuscript is original, has not been previously published in substantially the same form, and is not simultaneously under consideration by another journal or publisher.

Authorship and Contribution

Authorship must accurately reflect scholarly contributions to the research and preparation of the manuscript. Individuals listed as authors should have made substantial contributions to the conception, design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or writing of the study and should approve the final version of the manuscript.

Guest authorship, honorary authorship, gift authorship, and the exclusion of individuals who have made substantial scholarly contributions are considered unethical publication practices.

Any changes to authorship after manuscript submission must be accompanied by a reasonable explanation and approval from all affected authors and are subject to editorial approval.

Originality and Plagiarism

Authors must ensure that manuscripts submitted to JLSPA: Journal of Law, Social, and Public Affairs are original scholarly works. All ideas, statements, theories, data, figures, tables, legal materials, documents, and other content originating from other sources must be properly cited and acknowledged.

Plagiarism in any form, including direct plagiarism, mosaic plagiarism, inappropriate paraphrasing, and the use of another person's ideas or work without proper attribution, is unacceptable.

The journal may use plagiarism-detection software or other appropriate methods to assess manuscript originality before or during the editorial process.

Duplicate and Redundant Publication

Authors must not submit substantially the same manuscript simultaneously to more than one journal. Manuscripts that have already been published substantially elsewhere are generally not eligible for publication unless there is a legitimate scholarly justification and appropriate disclosure.

The inappropriate reuse of substantial portions of an author's previously published work without proper citation or disclosure may be considered redundant publication or self-plagiarism.

Data Integrity and Research Ethics

Authors must maintain the accuracy and integrity of research data. Fabrication, falsification, selective manipulation, deliberate omission, or misleading presentation of research data is prohibited.

For studies involving human participants, personal data, confidential records, interviews, surveys, or other ethically sensitive information, authors must comply with applicable research ethics principles and legal requirements.

Where relevant, authors may be required to provide documentation of ethical approval, informed consent, institutional permission, or other supporting evidence.

Publication Misconduct

The journal does not tolerate any form of publication misconduct, including but not limited to:

  1. plagiarism and self-plagiarism;

  2. duplicate or redundant publication;

  3. data fabrication or falsification;

  4. manipulation or misrepresentation of research findings;

  5. citation manipulation;

  6. inappropriate or fraudulent authorship;

  7. undisclosed conflicts of interest;

  8. peer-review manipulation;

  9. unethical use or disclosure of confidential research data;

  10. manipulation of images, tables, documents, or other research evidence; and

  11. other practices that compromise the integrity of scholarly publication.

If publication misconduct is suspected or identified, the Editorial Board may request clarification and supporting documentation from the authors, conduct further investigation, suspend the editorial process, reject the manuscript, issue a correction or expression of concern, retract a published article, or take other appropriate editorial actions.

Conflict of Interest

All parties involved in the publication process, including authors, editors, and reviewers, must disclose any potential conflict of interest that could influence or reasonably be perceived to influence the objectivity, integrity, or fairness of the publication process.

Conflicts of interest may include personal, professional, academic, institutional, political, financial, or other relationships that may affect independent judgment.

Editors and reviewers must not participate in the evaluation of manuscripts where a conflict of interest could compromise the fairness and independence of the editorial or peer-review process.

Confidentiality

Editors, reviewers, and journal management must maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts, author information, reviewer identities, review reports, unpublished data, and editorial decisions.

Information or ideas obtained through the editorial or peer-review process must not be disclosed, misused, or used for personal, professional, institutional, financial, academic, or other advantage before publication.

Corrections, Retractions, and Clarifications

JLSPA: Journal of Law, Social, and Public Affairs is committed to maintaining the accuracy and integrity of the scholarly record.

Corrections or clarifications may be issued when errors are identified that do not invalidate the fundamental findings or arguments of a published article. Retraction may be considered when there is reliable evidence of serious error, plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, unethical research practices, duplicate publication, or other misconduct that substantially undermines the reliability or integrity of the article.

Where necessary, the journal may also publish expressions of concern while an investigation is ongoing.

All editorial actions involving corrections, clarifications, expressions of concern, or retractions will be conducted carefully, objectively, fairly, transparently, and with appropriate documentation to protect the integrity of the journal and the scholarly record.