Author Guidelines

1. About the Journal and Manuscript Types

Journal Justiciabelen (JJ) accepts scholarly articles in the field of law, written in Indonesian or English, and is published twice a year in January and July. Manuscripts that do not follow these guidelines are returned to the authors before entering the review stage.

Item	Details
Publisher	Master of Law Study Program, Universitas Suryakancana, Cianjur
P-ISSN / E-ISSN	2774-3764 / 2774-8375
DOI prefix	10.35194
Frequency	Twice a year (January and July)
Accreditation	SINTA 5 (Decree of the Director General of Higher Education, Research, and Technology No. 177/E/KPT/2024)
License	Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Review process	Double-blind peer review by 2 reviewers
Editorial e-mail	journal.justiciabelen@unsur.ac.id

Focus and scope: Criminal Law; Civil Law; Constitutional Law; Administrative Law; Criminal Procedure Law; Civil Procedure Law; Islamic Law; Business Law; Environmental Law; Health Law; Employment Law.

Accepted manuscript types:

Legal research articles, whether normative (doctrinal), empirical, or socio-legal.
Conceptual articles offering ideas, critical analysis, or reconstruction of legal norms, with arguments supported by primary and secondary sources.

Articles that merely summarize legislation without analysis, or that are undergraduate or graduate theses not adapted to journal-article format, will not be processed.

2. General Submission Requirements

Manuscripts are submitted only through the OJS system at https://jurnal.unsur.ac.id/index.php/JJ; manuscripts sent by e-mail are not processed.

The manuscript is the authors' original work, has not been published, and is not under consideration by another journal or outlet. Authors confirm this in the Statement of Originality, Authorship, and Transfer of Publication Rights, uploaded as a supplementary file.
The similarity index must not exceed 20%, excluding references and quotations, as checked with Turnitin. Manuscripts above this threshold are returned for revision or rejected under the Plagiarism Policy.
Manuscripts must be written directly in the JJ template in Microsoft Word format (.doc/.docx).
Because review is double-blind, upload two files: (a) the full manuscript with author details, and (b) a blinded manuscript without names, affiliations, acknowledgments, or document metadata that reveals the authors' identity.
Author registration. All authors are entered in the OJS metadata with full name, affiliation, active e-mail, and ORCID iD. ORCID is mandatory for the corresponding author and recommended for co-authors.
The article processing charge (APC) follows the Articles Processing Charge page and is paid only after the manuscript is accepted.
Indonesian manuscripts follow KBBI and the current PUEBI/EYD; English manuscripts use one variety (American or British English) consistently. Foreign and regional-language terms are italicized.
Authors are bound by JJ's Publication Ethics, which follows the COPE guidelines and Regulation of the Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology No. 39 of 2021 on Academic Integrity in Producing Scientific Works.

3. Manuscript Format and Structure

Manuscripts are written directly in the JJ Article Template without changing its layout, styles, header, or footer. The requirements below summarize the template.

3.1 Page layout

Item	Requirement
Paper size	A4 (21 × 29.7 cm)
Margins	Top 3 cm, bottom 3 cm, left 4 cm, right 3 cm
Font	Times New Roman 12 pt; article title 14 pt
Line spacing	1.5 for the body (Sections A–F); 1 (single) for the title, author details, abstract, citation examples, and reference entries
Paragraphs	Justified, first line indented 1 cm
Length	10–15 pages including references
Header and footer	Authors fill in the author names in the header and the article title in the footer. Volume, issue, year, pages, and the Submit/Accepted/Publish dates are filled in by the editors.

3.2 Title, author details, and abstract

Item	Requirement
Title	No more than 12 words; Times New Roman 14 pt, bold, uppercase, single-spaced, centered. The title reflects the legal issue examined.
Author names	Full names without academic titles or positions; 12 pt, bold, underlined, single-spaced, centered. Names are separated by commas, with "and" before the last name ("dan" in Indonesian manuscripts). Each name carries a superscript number referring to its affiliation.
Affiliation	Preceded by a superscript number: unit/study program, faculty, university or institution, city, country; 12 pt, not bold, single-spaced.
E-mail	Preceded by a superscript number in the format "¹E-Mail: ..."; 12 pt, not bold. The corresponding author's e-mail is marked with an asterisk (*).
Abstract	Two languages: ABSTRAK (standard Indonesian per KBBI) and ABSTRACT (American or British English, used consistently). One paragraph, no more than 200 words, 12 pt, single-spaced, indented 1 cm on both sides. No citations, tables, or figures, and not dense with numbers. It covers the problem, objectives, method, results, and conclusion. Abbreviations are used only for terms that appear more than once.
Keywords	3–5 keywords in each language, in alphabetical order.

Example of author details (centered):

Ahmad Fauzi¹*, Siti Rahmawati², and Budi Santoso¹
¹Master of Law Study Program, Universitas Suryakancana, Cianjur, Indonesia
²Faculty of Law, Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung, Indonesia
¹E-Mail: ahmad.fauzi@contoh.ac.id (*corresponding author)
²E-Mail: siti.rahmawati@contoh.ac.id

3.3 Body structure

Section headings are written in bold uppercase and labeled A–F. Subheadings in Section C are numbered 1, 2, 3 according to the research questions.

Section (Indonesian manuscript)	Section (English manuscript)	Content
A. PENDAHULUAN	A. INTRODUCTION	A current legal issue supported by primary sources and a theoretical framework, moving from the general problem to the core issue. Includes a review of prior studies showing novelty, the research questions, and objectives. Citations are required.
B. METODE	B. METHOD	Type of research (normative, empirical, or socio-legal), approaches, legal materials or data, and the techniques for collecting and analyzing them. Complex activities may be shown in a flow chart. The method must connect to the discussion.
C. HASIL DAN PEMBAHASAN	C. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION	Answers to each research question. Findings are compared with similar studies, with their scientific reasoning, strengths, weaknesses, and impact explained. Tables and figures must be simple, informative, and understandable without reading the text.
D. PENUTUP	D. CONCLUSION	Conclusions and recommendations. Conclusions briefly answer the research questions or objectives in paragraph form, without citations, and do not repeat the results and discussion.
E. UCAPAN TERIMA KASIH	E. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS	Required in every manuscript. Thanks institutions or individuals who supported the research (funding, facilities, personnel) or reviewed the manuscript before submission. This section also contains the author contribution, conflict of interest, and AI-use statements (see Section 5.4).
F. DAFTAR PUSTAKA	F. REFERENCES	See Section 4.

3.4 Other technical requirements

Legislation is cited in full on first mention, e.g., "Law Number 1 of 2023 on the Criminal Code (KUHP)"; afterward the abbreviation suffices.
Articles are written as "Article 28D paragraph (1)", not "Art. 28D (1)".
Court decisions are cited by their full number, e.g., "Constitutional Court Decision Number 90/PUU-XXI/2023".
Tables and figures are numbered consecutively and given a title and source. Table titles go above the table; figure titles go below the figure.
Foreign terms and Latin legal maxims (e.g., lex specialis derogat legi generali) are italicized.

4. Citations and References

JJ uses the American Psychological Association 7th edition (APA 7th) style with in-text citations, not footnotes. Citations and references must be generated with Mendeley.

4.1 Number and currency of references

At least 10 references, consisting of books, journal articles, papers or proceedings, web sources, and interviews where applicable.
Primary sources, meaning scholarly journal articles, make up at least 80% of all references.
References are published within the last 10 years.
Legislation and court decisions are listed in the references but do not count toward the minimum number or percentage above.
Classic works (e.g., by Kelsen, Hart, or Soepomo) may be cited beyond the 10-year limit, in addition to the minimum.
Include the DOI in the form https://doi.org/... for every source that has one.
Self-citation may not exceed 20% of all references.

4.2 In-text citations

Source type	Citation example
Book	(Marzuki, 2021) or Marzuki (2021)
Journal, two authors	(Susilo & Rafi, 2024)
Proceedings, three or more authors	(O'Connor et al., 2017)
Web page	(Ferdian, 2026)
Direct quotation	(Marzuki, 2021, p. 35)
Interview	(A. Hidayat, personal communication, March 12, 2026)
Legislation	(Law Number 1 of 2023)
Court decision	(Constitutional Court Decision Number 90/PUU-XXI/2023)

4.3 Reference list

Every source cited in the text must appear in Section F, and vice versa. Entries are arranged alphabetically, single-spaced, with a hanging indent as set in the template. Non-English titles keep their original wording, optionally followed by an English translation in square brackets.

Book: Marzuki, P. M. (2021). Penelitian hukum [Legal research] (Rev. ed.). Kencana.
Journal: Susilo, E., & Rafi, M. (2024). Pendekatan favor defensionis dalam merealisasikan hak terdakwa untuk menghadirkan saksi atau ahli. Veritas et Justitia, 10(2), 343–363. https://doi.org/10.25123/vej.v10i2.8479
Proceedings: O'Connor, Y., Rowan, W., Lynch, L., & Heavin, C. (2017). Privacy by design: Informed consent and Internet of Things for smart health. Procedia Computer Science, 113, 653–658. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2017.08.329
Web page: Ferdian, D. (2026). Sidang narkotika: Pemilik D'Poin Juprian akan dipanggil paksa, ahli kupas justice collaborator. Harian Haluan Riau. https://riau.harianhaluan.com/hukrim/1116529932/sidang-narkotika-pemilik-dpoin-juprian-akan-dipanggil-paksa-ahli-kupas-justice-collaborator
Legislation: Undang-Undang Nomor 1 Tahun 2023 tentang Kitab Undang-Undang Hukum Pidana [Law Number 1 of 2023 on the Criminal Code]. Lembaran Negara Republik Indonesia Tahun 2023 Nomor 1.
Court decision: Putusan Mahkamah Konstitusi Nomor 90/PUU-XXI/2023 [Constitutional Court Decision Number 90/PUU-XXI/2023].
Thesis/dissertation: Surname, A. A. (Year). Title of thesis [Master's thesis, University Name]. Repository Name. URL
Interview: under APA 7, interviews are cited in the text as personal communications and are not included in the reference list. When interviews are research data, the informant's position or code and the interview date are described in Section B (Method).

Unverifiable sources (personal blogs, Wikipedia, papers without authorship details) may not serve as the main support for an argument.

5. Authorship Criteria

A person may be listed as an author only if they meet all four criteria below, and everyone who meets all four must be listed. This policy adapts the recommendations of ICMJE, the guidance of COPE, and the CRediT taxonomy (ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022).

5.1 The four authorship criteria

Substantial contribution to the conception or design of the research, or to the search, analysis, and interpretation of legal materials or data; and
Drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content (legal arguments, analysis, and conclusions); and
Final approval of the version to be published; and
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work, including answering and resolving questions about the accuracy or integrity of any part of it. Each author should also know who did the other parts and have confidence in the integrity of co-authors' contributions.

Contributors who do not meet all four criteria are not listed as authors but are acknowledged in Section E (Acknowledgments). The following activities, on their own, do not qualify for authorship:

obtaining funding or holding a leadership position (rector, dean, head of study program, head of institute);
general supervision or advising without involvement in analysis and writing;
language editing, translation, typing, or layout;
providing access to case files, institutional data, or respondents;
collecting field data without taking part in analysis and writing.

5.2 Author names and affiliations

Names are written in full without academic titles or positions, in the same form used in the OJS metadata, the ORCID profile, and the author's previous publications. Consistent names ensure the article is correctly recorded in Google Scholar, SINTA, Garuda, and Crossref.
The affiliation is the institution where the research was conducted. Authors who have since moved may add their new affiliation as a second affiliation with its own superscript number.
Students list their study program and university; practitioners (judges, prosecutors, advocates, notaries, civil servants) list their institution; authors without an institution write "Independent Researcher, city, country".
The corresponding author is marked with an asterisk (*) on their name and e-mail. Authors who contributed equally may be marked with a dagger (†), with the note "†Equal contribution" below the e-mail lines.

5.3 Number and order of authors

A manuscript may list no more than 5 (five) authors.
A person may appear as an author (first or co-author) on only 1 (one) article per issue.
The order of authors is agreed by all authors before submission, with the largest contributor as first author. The editors do not determine author order.
Articles derived from an undergraduate thesis, master's thesis, or dissertation list the student as first author. Supervisors are listed only if they meet all four criteria in 5.1, not merely because of their supervisory role.

5.4 Author statements in Section E

Every manuscript contains four statements in Section E (Acknowledgments), in this order:

Acknowledgments and funding: non-author contributors, funders, and grant contract numbers. Write "None" if not applicable.
Author contributions: required for manuscripts with more than one author, using the CRediT roles in the table below.
Conflict of interest: state "The authors declare no conflict of interest" or describe any conflict, for example an author serving as counsel in a case analyzed in the article.
Use of AI: name the tool and how it was used (see 5.10), or write "None".

Choose only the CRediT roles actually performed. Not every role must be filled, and one role may be held by more than one author.

CRediT role	Example in legal research
Conceptualization	Formulating the legal issue, research questions, and line of argument
Methodology	Choosing the type of research, approaches, and techniques for analyzing legal materials
Investigation	Searching legislation, court decisions, and doctrine; conducting interviews or observation
Formal analysis	Interpreting norms, analyzing court decisions, or processing empirical data
Data curation	Inventorying and classifying legal materials or data
Resources	Providing access to documents, cases, or respondents
Software	Setting up analysis tools (e.g., NVivo or text analysis of court decisions)
Validation	Verifying the accuracy of cited norms, decision numbers, and findings
Visualization	Preparing comparison tables, charts, or flow charts
Writing – original draft	Writing the first draft of the manuscript
Writing – review & editing	Critically revising the substance, including responses to reviewers
Supervision	Directing and overseeing the research
Project administration	Managing the research schedule and coordination
Funding acquisition	Obtaining research grants or funding

Example of Section E:

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank LPPM Universitas Suryakancana for funding through the
2026 Novice Lecturer Research Grant (Contract Number ...).

Author Contributions: Author 1: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation,
Writing – original draft. Author 2: Formal analysis, Validation, Writing –
review & editing, Supervision. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Conflict of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Use of AI: The authors used [tool name] to translate the abstract into English,
then checked and edited the output.

In the blinded manuscript, the content of Section E is replaced with "[Hidden for review]".

5.5 Authorship statement

The Statement of Originality, Authorship, and Transfer of Publication Rights is signed by all authors and uploaded as a supplementary file at submission. It declares that:

every author meets all four criteria in 5.1;
all authors approve the list and order of authors and the submitted manuscript;
no one who meets the criteria has been left out;
the corresponding author is appointed to act on behalf of all authors.

The editors may send a confirmation e-mail to every listed author. If any author states that they were unaware of or did not approve the submission, processing stops until the matter is resolved.

5.6 Corresponding author

The corresponding author submits the manuscript through OJS and acts on behalf of all authors. They must:

ensure that all authors meet the criteria in 5.1 and approve the submission;
enter all authors with their affiliations, e-mails, and ORCID iDs in the OJS metadata, exactly matching the manuscript;
forward all editorial correspondence to every author;
sign the statement on behalf of all authors;
remain reachable during review, editing, and after publication.

5.7 Changes to authorship

Adding, removing, or reordering authors may be requested only before the manuscript is accepted.
The corresponding author submits the request to the editors with written reasons and a consent statement signed by all authors, including any author being added or removed.
After acceptance, changes are possible only in exceptional circumstances with the approval of the Editor-in-Chief; publication is suspended until the request is decided.
Changes after publication are made through a correction (corrigendum) following COPE procedures.
An author who dies during the process remains listed if they meet the criteria. The corresponding author gives approval on their behalf, and this is noted in Section E.

5.8 Authorship disputes

The editors do not mediate or decide authorship disputes. When a dispute arises, the editors suspend the manuscript and follow the COPE flowchart on authorship problems. If the authors cannot resolve it, the editors ask the authors' institutions to follow up. The manuscript resumes only after written agreement from all parties.

5.9 Prohibited authorship practices

Ghost authorship: omitting someone who meets the authorship criteria.
Guest, gift, or honorary authorship: listing someone because of position, seniority, or personal relationship without a qualifying contribution.
Listing a person without their consent, or using a fictitious author identity.
Buying, selling, or trading authorship: offering, purchasing, or exchanging author positions in any form.
Using third-party writing services (ghostwriters or "joki") to write a manuscript that is then presented as the authors' own work.

Violations lead to rejection of the manuscript or retraction of the published article under the Article Retraction & Withdrawal policy, notification of the authors' institutions, and a ban on submitting to JJ for a period set by the Editorial Board.

5.10 Use of artificial intelligence (AI) and AI statement

Authors may use AI tools as assistants, but every use beyond spelling and grammar checking must be declared in an AI statement in Section E. The authors, not the tool, remain fully responsible for the content.

AI cannot be an author. Generative AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini) cannot be listed as authors, because they cannot meet the criteria in 5.1, take responsibility for the work, declare conflicts of interest, or sign the authorship statement.
Permitted uses (must be declared):

improving language, translating the abstract or text, or rephrasing the authors' own writing;
assisting literature searches or summarizing sources that the authors have read themselves;
assisting the analysis of empirical data (e.g., coding interview transcripts), which must also be described in Section B (Method);
producing tables, diagrams, or flow charts from the authors' own content.

Prohibited uses:

generating legal arguments, analysis, or conclusions presented as the authors' own thinking;
citing references, legislation, court decisions, or quotations produced by AI without checking them against the original source; AI tools are known to invent articles and court decisions that do not exist;
generating or altering research data, interview results, or images presented as evidence;
citing AI output as a legal authority or primary source.

No declaration needed: spelling and grammar checkers (e.g., Grammarly, the Microsoft Word editor), reference managers (Mendeley), and similarity checkers (Turnitin).
AI statement wording. Write the statement under "Use of AI" in Section E, filling in the brackets:

Use of AI: During the preparation of this manuscript, the author(s) used
[tool name and version] for [purpose, e.g., translating the abstract into English /
improving the language of Sections A–C]. After using this tool, the author(s)
reviewed and edited the output and take full responsibility for the content of
this article.

If no AI tool was used, write: "Use of AI: The authors did not use generative AI tools in preparing this manuscript."

Reviewers and editors. Reviewers and editors must not upload a manuscript, any part of it, or review reports to generative AI tools, because doing so breaches the confidentiality of double-blind review. AI may be used only to polish the language of their own review comments, not to assess the manuscript.
Verification and sanctions. The editors may ask authors to show how AI was used, for example through prompt history or earlier drafts. Undisclosed AI use, or fabricated references, legislation, or court decisions, is treated as a breach of publication ethics and is subject to the sanctions in 5.9.

5.11 Manuscripts from editorial board members

Members of the JJ Editorial Board and reviewers may submit manuscripts. These are handled by another editor without a conflict of interest and go through the same double-blind review. An author who is a board member takes no part in any decision on their own manuscript.

6. Review Process and Submission Checklist

Every manuscript goes through an initial editorial check, then double-blind review by 2 reviewers, with a maximum review time of 2 weeks.

Initial check (desk review): fit with the scope, use of the template, similarity index, and completeness of files.
Double-blind review: 2 reviewers assess the substance; the identities of authors and reviewers are concealed from each other.
Editorial decision: accept, minor revision, major revision, or reject.
Revision: authors upload the revised manuscript and a response matrix addressing every reviewer comment within 14 days.
Copyediting and proofreading: authors check the galley proof before publication.
Publication: the article is published online with a DOI under the 10.35194/jj prefix.

Checklist before submitting

☐ The manuscript is original, unpublished, and not under consideration elsewhere
☐ The manuscript is written in the JJ template (.doc/.docx), margins 3-3-4-3 cm, 10–15 pages
☐ Similarity index no more than 20%
☐ Title no more than 12 words; author names without titles, with superscript affiliation numbers
☐ Abstract in two languages (no more than 200 words each) and 3–5 keywords in alphabetical order
☐ Sections A–F as in the template
☐ At least 10 references, at least 80% journal articles, published within the last 10 years, APA 7 via Mendeley, DOIs included
☐ All authors meet the Authorship Criteria (no more than 5 authors) and are entered in the OJS metadata with affiliation, e-mail, and ORCID iD
☐ Section E contains acknowledgments/funding, author contributions (CRediT), conflict of interest, and use of AI
☐ A blinded manuscript without author details has been uploaded for double-blind review
☐ The Statement of Originality, Authorship, and Transfer of Publication Rights, signed by all authors, has been uploaded