General Rules

1. With regard to all its publications, the Wydawnictwo Instytutu Wymiaru Sprawiedliwości (the “Publisher”) safeguards the observance of publishing standards and rules of publication ethics and prevents any practices contrary to the accepted standards.
2. The Publisher treats the standards developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, https://publicationethics.org) as a point of reference for the purposes of this Code of Ethics and Conduct.
3. The Publisher provided open access to guidelines for contributors and reviewers. These guidelines include explanations of editorial processes and information on the rights and obligations of contributors and reviewers.
4. The Publisher operates a double-blind peer-review process and ensures that complex manuscripts are reviewed by reasonably selected reviewers with appropriate qualifications in a given field, in which they have published their own works.
5. The Publisher has the right to withdraw a publication after it is published if: (a) there is irrefutable evidence of data falsification, (b) unintentional errors have been made that significantly contribute to a decrease in the credibility of the study, (c) the manuscript appears to be plagiarised or to seriously violate the rules of publication ethics.

Issues directly related to contributors

1. Contributors are obliged to observe the standards of scientific integrity and the universally applicable rules of publication ethics.
2. Contributors may submit only their own original manuscripts for publication. Any references to works and studies of other authors should be clearly indicated, accompanied by appropriate commentary and notes, and should be mentioned in the bibliography. Failure to comply with the above rules is a manifestation of scientific dishonesty. If any such violation is detected, the Publisher will notify the relevant entities, including institutions employing the contributor, the scientific societies of which the contributor is a member, academic associations and other relevant bodies, depending on the circumstances of the case.
3. Contributors may submit only manuscripts that have not been submitted and provided to other publishers for publication. Submitting manuscripts to several publishers at the same time is unethical; the Publisher reserves the right to reject such manuscripts.
4. Contributors are obliged to cooperate with the editorial team during the review and, if applicable, publication process. Contributors are also obliged at all times to provide access to the data they refer to in their manuscripts.
5. Contributors should disclose any conflicts of interest that may affect the results of the study or their interpretation, e.g. grants, royalties, other forms of funding, membership in organisations and associations, employment relationships, consulting work, ownership of shares or other equity interests, patents, licensing agreements, and personal or professional relations. All sources of financial support for the manuscript must be disclosed, including the subsidy number (numer dotacji) or another reference to the source of funding.
6. If a manuscript has been written by several contributors, the contributors have the duty to disclose their contributions, indicating exactly what the contribution of a given author was.
7. Ghostwriting, ghost authorship, guest authorship and gift authorship are considered manifestations of authorship and scientific dishonesty. If any such violation is detected, the Publisher will notify the relevant entities, including institutions employing the contributor, the scientific societies of which the contributor is a member, academic associations and other relevant bodies, depending on circumstances.
8. Contributors are obliged to notify the Publisher in case of discovering any significant inaccuracies or errors in the published manuscript they have written as authors or co-authors. The Publisher, depending on circumstances, will rectify such inaccuracies or errors by way of an explanatory note, correction or any other appropriate measure in respect of the next issue or printout.
9. The science editor of a collective work is obliged to ensure the scientific integrity of the manuscripts published in the collective work. If publication misconduct is suspected, the editor is obliged to immediately notify the publisher about such suspicion and must simultaneously decide to withdraw the manuscript from publication.
10. The science editor of a collective work is required to ensure that the authors of each publication accept its content following any corrections made during the editorial process.

Review process

1. Review comments are confidential and will only be disclosed to persons involved in the editorial and publishing process.
2. A review must be objective.
3. There should be no conflict of interest between the reviewer and the contributing author(s). If such a conflict occurs, the reviewer must immediately report it to the editorial team and return the manuscript under review.
4. Review comments may not be passed on by a reviewer to another reviewer without the express prior written consent of the editorial team.
5. Reviewers and editors are obliged to inform the publisher of any fraudulent use of the intellectual property. They are also obliged to inform the publisher if they suspect that an ethical violation has occurred.

Procedures to address suspected violations

The Publisher collects full evidence and takes further action depending on the probability and extent of the suspected violation  in the following cases: suspected plagiarism, a minor reproduction of someone else's work, suspected dual publication understood as a copy of the contributor's own work, suspected fabrication of data or in the event of an accusation that the reviewer has improperly used the contributor's work in a submitted or published manuscript. The Publisher will bring such cases to the attention of relevant entities, including institutions employing the contributor, scientific societies, academic associations and other relevant bodies, depending on circumstances. The Publisher will take immediate action if there is a suspicion that the contributor who has submitted a manuscript or whose manuscript has been published does not comply with the rules of publication ethics. The Publisher will consider any reported publication misconduct, even if detected long after the date of publication. If ethical misconduct is proven, the publisher will publish a correction or a comment or will withdraw the manuscript from publication or take any other appropriate action. With regard to all its publications, the Publisher safeguards the observance of publishing standards and rules of publication ethics (the Code of Ethics and Conduct ) and prevents any practices contrary to the accepted norms. The Publisher treats the standards developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, https://publicationethics.org) as a point of reference for the purposes of this Code of Ethics and Conduct .