Editorial Ethics
Principles and Guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

KIRIKKALE LAW JOURNAL (KHM) follows the "Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" and "Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers" documents of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Regarding COPE's "Core Practices" document, see https://publicationethics.org 

FOR AUTHORS
- Articles submitted to the KHM must be original works in the field of law.
- All sources utilised in the articles (authors, online pages, personal interviews, etc.) must be cited correctly and appropriately.
- It should be stated that the article has not been published before or is not under consideration for publication in another journal and the Copyright Transfer Form should be filled in.
- Persons who have not contributed intellectually to the article should not be listed as authors.
- Conflicts of interest regarding the submitted manuscript should be indicated and the reason should be explained.
- Authors may be asked to submit raw data about their work to the editorial board during the refereeing process, in which case authors are expected to share their raw data with the editorial board. Authors are obliged to keep the data related to a published article for 5 years.
- Authors should inform the editor and the editorial board when they detect an error in their work and should co-operate for the correction or retraction process.

FOR REFEREES
All manuscripts submitted to KHM are evaluated through a double blind review process. Double blind refereeing means that the authors are kept confidential from the referees and the referees are kept confidential from the authors in order to ensure an unbiased, objective and independent evaluation process. The referees are required to fill out a form containing their judgements on the contribution of the article to the field of law and whether the article is publishable or not, and the reasons for these judgements. The ethical responsibilities and roles of the referees of the KHM are as follows:

- Reviewers are only required to review articles related to their field of expertise.
- Reviewers are expected to agree to review manuscripts without any conflict of interest. Referees should inform the editor when they realise any conflict of interest and refuse to referee the relevant article.
- Reviewers should evaluate the articles impartially and objectively.
- Reviewers are required to fill in the Referee Evaluation Form for the articles they evaluate, and are expected not to indicate their names on the forms in order not to damage the double blind review process. The referees are also required to state their decision on whether the manuscript is publishable or not and the reasons for their decision in this form.
- The style used by the referees in their suggestions should be polite, respectful and scientific. Reviewers should avoid offensive, disrespectful and subjective personal comments. When referees are found to make such unscientific comments, they may be contacted by the editor or editorial board to review and correct their comments.
- Reviewers are required to complete their evaluations within the time given to them and are expected to comply with the ethical responsibilities specified here.

FOR EDITORS
The editor is required to comply with the ethical responsibilities listed below in the 'COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors' (COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf)) and 'COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors' (COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (https://publicationethics.org/files/u2/Best_Practice.pdf)) published by the Committee on PublicationEthics (COPE (https://publicationethics.org/)).
The editor is responsible for all articles published in the journal. The ethical duties and responsibilities of the editor are as follows:

General Responsibilities
- The editor is obliged to endeavour to improve the quality of the journal and to contribute to its development.
- The editor is required to support the freedom of expression of the authors.

Relations with Referees
- The editor should ask the reviewers to evaluate the articles in accordance with their knowledge and expertise. Thus, it should be ensured that the articles are appropriately evaluated by experts in the field.
- The editor is obliged to request that the referees state that they have no conflicts of interest regarding the article before evaluating an article.
- The editor should provide the referees with all necessary information about the peer review process and what is expected from the referees.
- The editor should ensure that the peer review process is carried out in a double blind review process and should not disclose authors to reviewers and reviewers to authors.
- The editor should evaluate reviewers based on their timeliness and performance.
- The editor should create a database of reviewers and update the database according to the performance of the reviewers.
- The editor should remove reviewers who make rude and unqualified comments or return late from the reviewer list.
- The editor should continuously renew and expand the referee list according to the referees' areas of expertise.

Relationships with Authors
- The editor should continuously update the publication and writing rules and the sample template to inform the authors about what is expected of them.
- The editor should evaluate the manuscripts submitted to the journal in terms of the journal's editorial rules, the importance and originality of the work, and if he/she decides to reject the manuscript during the first submission process, he/she should clearly and impartially communicate the reasons to the authors. In this process, if it is decided that the article needs to be revised in terms of grammar, punctuation and/or spelling rules (margins, proper referencing, etc.), the authors should be informed about this and they should be given time to make the necessary corrections.
- Manuscripts should include the dates of submission and acceptance for publication.
- When authors request information about the status of their manuscripts, the authors should be informed about the status of their manuscripts in a way that does not disrupt the double blind review process.


- Plagiarism and Unethical Behaviour -
All manuscripts submitted to KHM are scanned with IThenticate (http://www.ithenticate.com/) or Turnitin (https://www.turnitin.com/) software programme before publication. Articles with a similarity rate of 15% or less are accepted for publication. Articles exceeding this rate are examined in detail and if deemed necessary, they are sent back to the authors for revision or correction, and if plagiarism or unethical behaviour is detected, publication is rejected.

-Publication Ethics and Malpractice Notification-

Non-Discrimination
Editorial decisions are made without regard to the origin of the manuscript, including the citizenship, ethnicity, political opinions, race or religion of the authors. Decisions to edit or publish manuscripts cannot be dictated by the policies of governments or other agencies outside the Journal itself

Privacy
The Journal respects the rules on privacy in Turkey. It is the responsibility of the Journal to protect the confidentiality of individual information obtained in the course of research or professional interactions. It is therefore almost always necessary to obtain written informed consent for publication from persons who may recognise themselves or be identified by others.

Authenticity and Plagiarism
Manuscripts to be submitted to the journal should be the author(s)' own work.
It is forbidden to use someone else's published or unpublished work or ideas without reference (i.e. plagiarism). If plagiarism is detected, the manuscript will be rejected; the author(s)' institution(s) or employer(s) may be notified.

Dealing with Possible Misconduct
The Journal will act on any suspicion of misconduct in relation to both published and unpublished manuscripts. Editors will not immediately reject manuscripts that raise concerns about possible misconduct, but will follow up disputed cases according to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowchart "what to do if you suspect plagiarism".

Ownership of the Work
The journal will take action if it suspects that the author list is incomplete or contains undeserving (guest or favoured) authors. Editors will follow the Committee on Publication Ethics' (COPE) flowchart "What to do if you suspect ghost, guest or favour authorship". 

Conflicts of Interest
The journal takes action when there is any suspicion of a conflict of interest in relation to both published and unpublished manuscripts. The Editors will follow up the disputed cases within the framework of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowchart "what to do if the referee suspects a hidden conflict of interest in a submitted manuscript" and "what to do if the reader suspects a hidden conflict of interest in a published manuscript".

The Journal does not accept submissions from Editors or Deputy Editors; however, submissions from Kırıkkale University Faculty of Law employees and members of the Kırıkkale Law Journal Editors and Editorial Board are acceptable and treated like any other submission without prejudice to impartial review.

In the case of a special issue with a Guest Editor, Guest Editors may also be authors of that special issue, without prejudice to impartial review.