Publication ethics of Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics specifies the duties of authors, referees, the editor and publisher.

Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics is a peer-reviewed journal. All manuscripts received are evaluated by the editorial board of Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics and by two anonymous external referees. Please note that our evaluation process takes account of several criteria. Excellence is a necessary condition for publication, but it is not always a sufficient condition. The need for a balance of topics, the Journal's particular areas of interest, which may change over time, the fact that something similar has already been published, etc., may also influence the final decision. Therefore, a rejection does not necessarily reflect upon the quality of a piece.

Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics submission evaluation process is completely anonymous. Therefore, before you submit, make sure that you have two separate files containing:
1. A manuscript with no information to identify the author/s. The editorial board of Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics bears no responsibility for any consequences of insufficient level of anonymity of the text. An insufficient level of anonymity may result in a delay during the review proceeding.
2. A title page, which indicates the author’s name with all academic titles, workplace, article title and email address.

Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics welcomes submissions of the following types of manuscript: original articles, short reports and commentaries. In addition, Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics also commissions book reviews and ‘discussion’ papers.

 

Author

By submitting a manuscript to the editorial board the author confirm the following:

submitted manuscript is his original work, which he can support with evidence upon request;

the author only submits manuscripts not published previously elsewhere;

the author only submits manuscripts that he currently, or until the review process is completed, does not intend to publish elsewhere;

is the sole owner of copyright for the submitted manuscript; in case there are co-authors all authors must be listed and agree with the publication of the manuscript;

informs the editor about any conflicts of interest related to the submitted manuscript;

clearly, accurately and unequivocally lists all sources used when writing the manuscript;

accepts editorial management of the journal;

submits the article to double-blinded anonymous review process and other evaluations of the editor;

informs the editor about any potential errors in the manuscript, including errors in the results of research described in the manuscript;

grants the publisher the right to publish the manuscript in electronic form, include the article in databases, in which Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics is included.

Instructions for authors: 

Submissions should be accompanied by an assurance that the manuscript has not been published, submitted, or accepted elsewhere. Submissions, in an electronic form only, are to be send to the editorial board of Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics to the e-mail address medlawjournal@ilaw.cas.cz. Also all other correspondence is to be addressed to the editorial board of Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics using the same e-mail address medlawjournal@ilaw.cas.cz.

Manuscript Submission Guidelines:

1. The number of characters of an article (paper) should not, in general, exceed 53 000. The head of editorial board of Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics may exceptionally accept also larger articles, if considered highly relevant. The number of characters of a book review and commentaries should not, in general, exceed 35 000. In addition, Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics also accepts ‘discussion’ papers (53 000 characters maximum), and short reports (35 000 characters maximum). Messages regarding events from scientific life are to be sent to the editorial board of Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics within one month after taking place.

2. The manuscript shall meet the following formal requirements: the article, including an abstract (c. 5-6 sentences) and keywords (2-5), shall be written in Czech or Slovak language using one of the generally available text editors (e.g. MS Word), font size shall be 12, type of font Times New Roman, line spacing 1.5 and borders at each side 2.5 cm. The manuscript must be paginated and divided into paragraphs and chapters, possibly with secondary titles. Notes in the manuscript are to be numbered in one series for the entire document and always included at the bottom of the corresponding page (footnotes). All citations is to comply with the ČSN ISO 690 and ČSN ISO 690-2 standard. 

3. For more details on bibliographic references and other requirements see citation samples, available for downloading from the magazine's website: http://medlawjournal.ilaw.cas.cz/

4. Authors bear full responsibility for the language, contents and formal level of the manuscript. The editorial board of Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics will only make basic necessary language modifications of the texts received.

5. A manuscript that does not meet the formal requirements from these Instructions may not be accepted for the review proceeding.

Copyright and originality of the offered manuscript:

1. It is assumed that the manuscript offered has not been previously published. It is expected that the authors will inform the editorial board of Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics if the entire manuscript, its parts or some relevant results have been previously published in a different publication at the level of an article in a reviewed scientific magazine or monograph. Should the editorial board of Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics conclude that this condition was not fulfilled the review process may be terminated.

2. It is assumed that the submitted manuscript is an original academic work. If that is not the case the author needs to provide information regarding all circumstances that could raise doubts whether the manuscript is the outcome of original research.

3. By submitting the manuscript the author acknowledges that after the publication in Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics her/his work will be made available online to the Internet users and also kept by the Library of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Author's rights to further use the work remain unabridged.

 

Referee

By accepting a manuscript the referee undertakes to:

immediately inform the editor in case of a conflict of interest;

ensure that information related to the manuscript and contained in it remains confidential;

point out to the editor all circumstances that could be a reason for rejecting the publication of the manuscript;

always evaluate manuscripts based on their content;

write the review report personally and to the best of own belief and knowledge;

inform the editor in case he does not feel sufficiently qualified to professionally evaluate the manuscript or if he cannot elaborate the review for any other reasons on his side.

 

Editor

All articles published in this journal have been subjected to a detailed review process, which includes first evaluation by the editor and anonymized review evaluation by at least two anonymous referees.

The editor of Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics decides which of the articles submitted to the journal shall be published. The editor pursues the policy of the editorial board and follows valid legislation related to slander, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may consult his decisions with other editors and referees.

The editor evaluates the manuscript based on its intellectual content, regardless of the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious believes, ethnic background, citizenship and political inclinations of the author.

The editor, or any other member of the editorial office, may not disclose any information about submitted manuscripts to any other person than the author, referees, potential referees, other editorial advisers and the publisher.

Editor's duty is to ensure just and relevant review process. The editor must refuse to take part in reviewing the manuscripts (i.e. must ask another editor or a member of the editorial board to manage the review and evaluation process), if in the given case there is a conflict of interest due to competitive relations, relations based on cooperation or connections with any of the authors, organizations and institutions connected with the given work. The editor must require all contributors to specify all conflicts of interest and publish a correction if a conflict of interest occurred after the article was published. If necessary, other measures may be taken, including publication of an announcement on a withdrawal of articles and notification of possible errors.

The editor must not use unpublished materials from submitted manuscripts for own research without explicit written approval of the author(s). Protected information and ideas received during the review process must be considered confidential and may not be used for personal benefit. It is the editor's responsibility to ensure that editorial decisions are not influenced by income from advertising, reprint and other commercial activities.

 

Publisher

Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics is interested in having the roles of the publisher and editors well defined to ensure the autonomy of editorial decisions without any influence from advertisers and other commercial partners.

We protect intellectual property and copyright of Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics, its brands, authors and publication partners by presenting and preserving the final published version of each article. Journal of Medical Law and Bioethics guarantees the integrity and transparency of all published articles with respect to conflicts of interest, financing of publication and research, publication and research ethics, publication and research errors, confidentiality of information, authorship, corrections, clarification and withdrawal of articles, including the publication of content.

In case of presumed or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, the publisher, in close cooperation with editors, shall take all measures necessary to clarify the situation and fix the article in question. This includes immediate publication of an announcement of correction or, in the most serious cases, retraction of the work in question.

 

Publication ethics of Journal of Medical Law and Bioethicsis primarily based on the Ethical Code of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

ISSN 1804-8137