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Justice & Health

Journal of Medico-Legal, Ethical & Forensic Scholarship

Proposed Official Publication of Vihar Society of Justice
Publishing Partner: Sramana Publications

Peer Reviewed | Open Access | Scholarly

Peer-Review Policy

Justice & Health will operate a double-anonymized peer-review process, in which feasible, to minimize bias related to identity, institution, designation or geography.

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Each research manuscript will normally be evaluated by at least two independent peer reviewers, although the Editor may request additional reviews when necessary.

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The editorial process will generally include:

Submission → Technical screening → Editorial assessment → Peer review → Revision → Final editorial decision → Copyediting → Proofreading → Publication

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The Editor-in-Chief and/or designated editors may reject a manuscript without external review if it is:

  • outside the journal's scope;

  • methodologically inadequate;

  • ethically problematic;

  • insufficiently original;

  • substantially below the journal's scientific standards; or

  • not compliant with essential submission requirements.

NLM specifically expects journals seeking recognition in its systems to have a clearly stated peer-review policy and to demonstrate that editorial and peer-review processes are genuinely applied.

Editorial Decision

Editorial decisions may include:

Accept

Minor Revision

Major Revision

Reject and Resubmit

Reject

A request for revision does not guarantee acceptance.

The revised manuscript should be accompanied by a point-by-point response to reviewers, with each comment reproduced or clearly identified and the author's response provided underneath.

Plagiarism, Duplicate Publication and Research Misconduct

All submissions may undergo editorial screening for:

  • plagiarism;

  • duplicate publication;

  • text recycling;

  • fabricated or falsified data;

  • image manipulation;

  • inappropriate citation practices;

  • authorship irregularities.

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The journal reserves the right to investigate suspected misconduct before or after publication.

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Where serious concerns arise, the journal may:

  • request clarification;

  • contact the authors' institution;

  • reject the manuscript;

  • issue a correction;

  • issue an expression of concern;

  • retract a published article; or

  • take other appropriate action.

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COPE recommends clear procedures for handling allegations of misconduct, authorship disputes, complaints and appeals.

Corrections, Retractions and Post-Publication Issues

The journal recognizes that errors may occasionally be identified after publication.

Depending on the nature of the issue, the journal may publish:

  • correction;

  • erratum;

  • corrigendum;

  • expression of concern;

  • retraction;

  • updated article or other appropriate notice.

The integrity of the scientific record will take precedence over the interests of individual authors or institutions.

Editorial Independence

Editorial decisions will be based primarily on:

  • scientific quality;

  • originality;

  • methodological rigor;

  • ethical compliance;

  • relevance to the journal;

  • clarity and significance.

Editorial decisions should not be influenced by commercial interests, sponsorship, personal relationships or institutional pressure.

This is especially important for Justice & Health because its scope crosses professional, legal and policy boundaries. NLM explicitly considers editorial independence and diversity when evaluating journals.

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