About the Journal

1. Focus and scope

Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA in law and criminology is aimed at disseminating, making visible and transferring research results developed by researchers, teachers and professionals with an interest in the area of public law and criminological science, national and international, in favour of the discussion and debate on problems of concern to society.

Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología aims to serve as an international platform, as it accepts the publication of articles written in Spanish, Italian, English and Portuguese, promoting both nationally and internationally, the publication of academic works of general interest.

Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología is divided into different sections, which will try to offer answers to the different research, theoretical and practical concerns, which will be interspersed within the different sections of the journal: monographic, miscellaneous, bibliographic reviews, invited articles, scientific activities of the Faculty of Law of the UPO, other relevant legal information, etc. In each issue of Cuadernos de res publica en derecho y criminología, up to 25% of the articles published may be guest authors with outstanding knowledge of the subject, both nationally and internationally, which will coexist in a miscellaneous character of articles dedicated to a monographic theme, with those of free theme that will be selected for publication.

The first section of Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología will be devoted to the Monograph, which will be announced sufficiently in advance, as a call for each publication, and articles of greater scope and length may be admitted in this section; the second section is reserved for Miscellaneous, with works of a length determined in the rules of style; the third section is devoted to comments on jurisprudence and/or legislation, on current legal issues or other topics of scientific interest; another section is devoted to Bibliographical Reviews. During the phase of submission of each proposal to the journal, each work will have to be submitted to one of these sections, where the editorial team can finally decide which of them is the most appropriate for each one.

2. Peer review process

All articles submitted to Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología for peer review must be original and unpublished. The whole process of submission, evaluation and publication of the work will be carried out through the journal's electronic platform.

1. Firstly, the proposals will be assessed by the journal's management, which will analyse their suitability for the journal's profile and the publication rules.
2. Once this first filter has been passed, the papers will be submitted for evaluation by two anonymous reviewers who are specialists in the discipline in question, whether they belong to the journal's Scientific Committee or to its peer reviewers, following a review procedure using the "double blind peer review system"; the authors must therefore omit their name and affiliation in the article, although they must be included in the metadata of the submission.
3. The assessment of each manuscript requires the report of two experts. In case of discrepancy, the journal management may request the review of a third reviewer. The judges' opinion will conclude with one of the following recommendations: a) It can be published as is; b) It can be published with corrections; c) It is not publishable. The modifications recommended by the reviewers will be reviewed by the editors involved in the first filter for final publication.
4. Invited articles by experts in criminal and criminological science will not be subject to double blind peer review

3. Open access policy

Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología provides immediate free access to its content, under the principle of making research freely available to the interested public, which encourages a greater exchange and dissemination of knowledge.

Authors may retain their copyright by granting the journal the right of first publication. The journal will allow authors non-commercial use of the work, including the right to place it in an open-access archive in institutional repositories or on publicly accessible personal websites, once it has been published in Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología.

Works published in Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License.

For the above reasons, there is no charge for submission, processing or publication, and publication in Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología is completely free of charge.

3.1. Digital preservation policies

Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología has an archiving system through OJS (Open Journal System) that guarantees its digital preservation. Specifically, this journal has activated the PKP PN (https://docs.pkp.sfu.ca/pkp-pn/en/). In this way, articles are progressively archived, ensuring that the stored digital information can remain and continue to be used in the future.

4. Frequency of publication

Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología is an electronic publication published twice a year, in January and July of each year.

5. Liability disclaimer

Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología is not responsible for the credibility and authenticity of the works. The opinions and facts contained in each article are the sole responsibility of the authors.

6. Ethical and good practice statement

Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología advocates the transfer and dissemination of knowledge, encouraging quality and scientific rigour in its publications with a high ethical commitment. In this sense, Cuadernos de res publica en derecho y criminología recognises the Code of Conduct and Best Practices developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), aimed at editors of scientific journals, which is available at the following link. Consequently, the journal will not accept racist, xenophobic, sexist or homophobic manifestations, or any other manifestations that violate the fundamental rights and freedoms of human beings.

6.1. Obligations and responsibilities of the editorial team

The management and editorial team of Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología commits itself to:

• advocate freedom of expression in its publications;
• to meet the needs of the reading public as well as those of its authors;
• to preserve the publication's academic record and peer review process in its entirety;
• be willing to make corrections and issue clarifications, retractions or apologies whenever necessary;
• strive for continuous improvement of the journal.

6.2. Relationship with authors and editors

Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología, as an electronic publication of the Universidad Pablo de Olavide de Sevilla, is committed to guaranteeing the quality of the contributions published, making clear the journal's objectives, the requirements and rules of publication, its editorial policy and the copyright notice, among others.

From this perspective, the decisions of the editor responsible for each issue regarding the acceptance or rejection of an article will be based on the relevance, scientific originality and clarity of the work, as well as its correlation with the scientific field advocated by the journal and its formal guidelines.

The management and editorial team of Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología, in case of conflict of interest between editors and authors, after passing the double-blind evaluation, will take the final decision on whether the contribution is accepted or rejected. At least 50% of the articles published in Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología are the work of researchers not linked to the Universidad Pablo de Olavide.

Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en Derecho y Criminología, through the "Enviós" section of its website, will describe in detail the peer review process that each original article must comply with. The journal guarantees its authors that the originals submitted will be treated confidentially throughout the peer review process. Should any irregularity be detected, the Editorial Team will be in a position to explain and justify any relevant deviation in the evaluation process.  In the "Submissions" section, the journal has a guide for authors which specifies those aspects related to the ethics and originality of the contributions. It also establishes a set of guidelines for submissions and recommendations, among which authors are urged to use inclusive and non-sexist language.

These guidelines and recommendations will be reviewed regularly and will include a hyperlink to this Ethical and Best Practice Statement. Authors will also have the right to appeal against editorial decisions. In order to promote the transparency of the evaluation process, the dates of submission and acceptance of articles will be published for those contributions that are accepted.

6.3. Relationship with reviewers

Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología guarantees the anonymity of the reviewers' identity. The editors will ensure that the review process is impartial, fair and timely, and will ensure that a uniform review report is sent to the reviewers, preserving their confidentiality at all times. In the evaluation form, reviewers will be encouraged to write comments and to remain vigilant for possible repeated publications or plagiarism. All articles published in the journal will have at least two positive evaluations from two specialists in the field. Likewise, in subsequent review certificates requested by reviewers, the title of the reviewed article and the name of its author will not be mentioned.

In order to ensure an optimal evaluation process, the Editorial Team will ensure the quality of the evaluations and will reject those that are not constructive, are of questionable quality or are disrespectful to the person or the work presented by the author.

All reviewers will be made aware of and should read this Ethical and Best Practice Statement before submitting their review. For this purpose, a link to this Statement will be included in the corresponding review form.

6.4. Conflict of interest

Authors must inform the Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en Derecho y Criminología management team of any conflict of interest or serious incident they may have with the editors or any other member of the journal. Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en Derecho y Criminología will establish the relevant measures and mechanisms to prevent and resolve conflicts of interest that may arise between reviewers, authors and editors of each issue.

6.5. Monitoring of misconduct

Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología assumes the responsibility to intervene in the event of suspicion of malpractice or the reporting of misconduct, and undertakes to act on both published and unpublished articles. The editors of each issue, as well as their reviewers, will not only reject contributions that are doubtful of possible malpractice, but will have an ethical obligation to report such conduct to the journal's management.  Should such a situation arise, the Editorial Team will seek a response from the authors or reviewers suspected of misconduct and, if no satisfactory explanation is forthcoming, will advise the journal management to initiate a more thorough investigation and take appropriate action.

6.6. Complaints, claims and suggestions

The editorial team in charge of each issue, in the case of issues that are extrinsic to the monographic issue in question, must deal promptly with suggestions or complaints via the Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología e-mail address, passing them on to the journal's management. All complaints or suggestions from readers or authors should be sent to the journal's e-mail address:

 respublica@upo.es

6.7. Integrity of scientific contributions

If Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología notices that a published article contains errors, relevant inaccuracies or erroneous information, the management will act to ensure that it is corrected immediately, informing the author beforehand and proceeding to correct it in the absence of a response from the author.

Plagiarism, in any of its forms; the repeated publication of an article; or the falsification or invention of research data will be considered as scientific fraud. If it is observed that the content of a paper is fraudulent, shows clear signs of plagiarism, has been sent simultaneously to several journals or has been previously published in other journals with minimal modifications, it will be rejected for evaluation and possible publication. If it has already been published in Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología, it will be removed from the journal's website.

6.8. Editorial practices in gender equality

Cuadernos de RES PUBLICA en derecho y criminología recommends that authors use inclusive and non-sexist language in the writing of any contribution to the journal, including the full names of the researchers in the bibliography. With regard to the wording of the contribution, it is advisable to consult the following CSIC Guide for a non-sexist use of language.