Peer Review Process

1. Submission Stage

All manuscripts must be submitted through the SEJALS online submission system using Open Journal Systems (OJS). At this stage, the editorial office conducts an initial assessment to determine whether the manuscript meets the journal's submission requirements and is suitable for external peer review.

Initial Editorial Screening

The editorial office assesses the following aspects:

• completeness of the submission files and manuscript metadata;
• compliance with the journal's author guidelines and formatting requirements;
• alignment with SEJALS's Focus and Scope;
• compliance with double-blind manuscript preparation requirements;
• similarity and potential plagiarism concerns;
• ethical approval and informed consent, where applicable;
• authorship, funding, and conflict-of-interest declarations;
• basic academic quality and methodological suitability; and
• potential concerns relating to data accuracy, citations, research integrity, or scholarly misconduct.

Scope Alignment

Manuscripts submitted to SEJALS should address contemporary legal issues and contribute to the development of legal scholarship. Relevant areas include legal pluralism and governance, administrative law, public policy and regulatory design, human rights, justice reform, environmental law, industrial and economic regulation, comparative legal studies, Islamic law, constitutional law, customary law, socio-legal studies, and law and technology.

SEJALS welcomes doctrinal or normative legal research, empirical legal studies, socio-legal research, comparative legal analysis, and interdisciplinary approaches that demonstrate a clear contribution to legal knowledge and practice.

Authors should consult the Focus and Scope before submitting their manuscripts.

2. Review Stage

Manuscripts that pass the initial screening are transferred to the OJS Review stage and assigned to an Editor or Section Editor with relevant expertise in the subject matter of the manuscript.

Reviewer Selection

• Normally, each manuscript is evaluated by at least two independent reviewers.
• A third reviewer may be invited when the initial reports substantially differ or additional expertise is required.
• Reviewers must possess relevant academic or professional expertise in the legal field addressed by the manuscript.
• Editors consider institutional, professional, collaborative, and personal conflicts of interest before assigning reviewers.
• Reviewer selection remains the responsibility of the editorial team, even when authors provide suggestions for potential reviewers.

Academic and Legal Evaluation

Editorial Decisions in OJS

Author Revision

When revisions are requested, authors should upload the following files through OJS, as applicable:

• a revised manuscript incorporating the reviewers' and editors' comments;
• a clean version of the revised manuscript, where requested;
• a marked or highlighted version showing the changes made, where requested; and
• a detailed point-by-point response letter addressing every reviewer and editor comment.

Each response should clearly explain the action taken by the authors. Where possible, authors should identify the relevant page, section, paragraph, or line number in the revised manuscript. If a recommendation is not adopted, the authors should provide a clear academic justification.

Additional Review Rounds

OJS allows multiple review rounds. A revised manuscript may be returned to the original reviewers, assigned to additional reviewers, or assessed directly by the responsible editor, depending on the nature and extent of the requested revisions.

3. Copyediting Stage

Once the editor selects Accept Submission, the manuscript proceeds to the OJS Copyediting stage.

At this stage, the journal may review and correct:

• language, grammar, and academic readability;
• journal style, structure, and manuscript formatting;
• references, citations, and bibliographic consistency;
• presentation of tables, figures, and other supporting materials;
• author affiliations and publication metadata;
• funding information, acknowledgements, and conflict-of-interest statements; and
• minor inconsistencies that do not alter the accepted academic arguments or conclusions.

4. Production Stage

Following copyediting, the manuscript moves to the OJS Production stage, where the final publication files are prepared.

Production may include:

• layout and typesetting;
• preparation of PDF and other publication formats;
• final placement of tables, figures, and supplementary materials;
• verification of article metadata and DOI information;
• author proof review;
• final correction of typographical and production errors; and
• scheduling and publication in the relevant journal issue.

Proofreading is intended to identify production and typographical errors. Substantial changes to the legal arguments, research methods, findings, authorship, or conclusions normally require editorial approval.

5. Double-Blind Review Requirements

6. Roles and Responsibilities

7. Research Integrity Checks

Research integrity may be assessed at any point during the OJS editorial workflow. SEJALS expects authors to uphold academic honesty, accuracy, transparency, and responsible research practices.

• Similarity and plagiarism screening may be conducted before or during peer review.
• Editors may examine legal sources, citations, research data, interview materials, documents, and other supporting evidence for accuracy and integrity.
• Raw data, interview records, research instruments, legal documents, permits, or ethics approvals may be requested where necessary and relevant.
• Editors may investigate concerns involving plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, duplicate publication, citation manipulation, or other forms of academic misconduct.
• Suspected misconduct is handled in accordance with the journal's Publication Ethics and Allegations of Misconduct policies.

8. Confidentiality and Conflicts of Interest

• Submitted manuscripts and peer-review materials are treated as confidential documents.
• Editors and reviewers must not use unpublished information for personal, academic, financial, or professional advantage.
• Reviewers must decline invitations when a conflict of interest could reasonably compromise their impartiality.
• Editors with relevant conflicts of interest must transfer responsibility to another qualified editor.
• Reviewer reports and editorial correspondence are used exclusively for legitimate editorial and scholarly-review purposes.
• All parties involved in the review process must respect the confidentiality of the double-blind review system.

9. Target Editorial Timelines

SEJALS seeks to process manuscripts efficiently while maintaining the quality, fairness, and independence of the peer-review process. The following periods are editorial targets rather than guaranteed service levels. Actual processing times may vary depending on the complexity of the legal issues, reviewer availability, revision requirements, ethical inquiries, and the number of review rounds.

10. Appeals and Complaints

• Authors may submit a written appeal within 14 calendar days of receiving an editorial decision.
• The appeal must identify a substantive academic, legal, or procedural issue and provide supporting arguments.
• Disagreement with an editorial decision alone is not sufficient grounds for an appeal without a clear academic or procedural justification.
• Where appropriate, an appeal may be evaluated by an editor who was not responsible for the original decision.
• An additional independent expert opinion may be requested when necessary.
• Complaints relating to peer review, editorial procedures, publication ethics, or research integrity should be submitted through the journal's official contact channel.

11. Reviewer Recognition

SEJALS acknowledges the important scholarly contributions of peer reviewers in maintaining the quality and integrity of academic publications. Reviewers may receive formal acknowledgement or a reviewer certificate where available. However, the identity of a reviewer assigned to a specific manuscript remains confidential in accordance with the journal's double-blind review policy.