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Editorial Guideline - African Journal of Law and Justice System

Aims and Scope
 
• The African Journal of Law and Justice System (AJLJS) is a peer reviewed journal that provides avenue for African scholars and others to share their thoughts on cutting-edge developments in African law and justice system whether in the form of empirical, analytical, critical or comparative study. The journal publishes articles, case notes and book reviews in various fields of law bi-annually (two issues per year). The journal seeks to galvanise interest and discussions in African justice system by also inviting scholarly works that focus on African customary/indigenous law which are not only informative, but would engender positive changes in African legal and justice system.
 
•The journal has a Virtual Editorial Assistant (VEA) who is attached to the journal’s editor and who liaises between the journal’s editor and the Authors. The VEA receives and acknowledges the receipt of papers on behalf of the editor. The VEA also creates a database of relevant reviewers and on the guidance of the editor, approaches potential reviewers with a list of articles available to be reviewed. This enables the potential reviewer to select from the list an article which he/she really has an interest it. 

•Though the journal is closed access, three articles of each issue are published as Open access. The editor and publishers decide on which articles should be made open access. There is no extra free for the authors whose articles are selected to be open access.  

•The journal is indexed by IBSS and SABINET.
 
Our publishing model

Why do we charge a publication fee for some of our journals when we are not an open access publishing firm? The simple answer is that we embraced what is called a mixed publishing modelGiven that revenue from journal subscription is rather paltry and grossly insufficient to sustain an ambitious publisher without the clout of the industry leaders, we decided to charge a modest publication fee of £150 per article for some of our journals while some are completely free. Currently we publish 21 journals out of which we charge publication fees on 11. For the journals we charge publication fee, we also make a percentage of the articles published in each issue of the journal available for the authors to publish on such open access platforms as Facebook, ResearchGate, LinkedIn etc. Our publication fee for AJBER is £250 because of the resource demand of the journal. For instance, while we have one Virtual Editorial Assistance to cover 2-3 journals, we have 3 VEAs to cover AJBER alone, which has a very high volume of submissions that averages more than 5 submissions per day (including weekends and public holidays).

Access to Digital Contents and Archival Policy

•Access to the digital contents of this journal is available through https://journals.co.za/journal/aa.ajljs. All past issues of the journal can also be accessed using the same link. Payments apply.

•It is our mission to disseminate the intellectual work of our authors and editors to a maximum number of readers worldwide. Consequently, we have digitized our entire journal archive going back to volume one of each title making the complete history of all journals accessible online and also available in print. 

Editorial Guidelines

Submission of article
•Submit only one copy of the manuscript with a separate cover page showing full author names, institutional affiliation and contact email address for all the Authors.  Submission should be made to:  info@adonis-abbey.com, copying editor@adonis-abbey.com. Submissions will be acknowledged electronically within 24 hours provided it is received on a working day.

Abstract
•The article must have an abstract of no more than 150 words. The abstract should give clear information about what the paper is about, method of data collection, the theoretical framework, key findings and key recommendations. It should also contain key words.

The manuscript
•The manuscript, including abstract, quotations, tabular material, notes, and references should be produced in Word, font size 12, and in the English language. It should be double-spaced, allowing one-inch margin on all sides. Where a special programme is required to read aspects of the manuscript, the Corresponding Author should send such a programme as a zip file to us or the link where the programme can be downloaded if it is free. The Corresponding Author is welcome to contact us on info@adonis-abbye.com to discuss how such a special programme can be sourced.

Tables, Figures, images and diagrams
•Type all tables, using a standard word processing programme and number them consecutively (eg Table 1; Figure 1).  Authors should insert all Tables and Figures within the text to where they are cited.
•Authors should ensure that the minimum resolution for any table, images, figures and diagrams is 300dpi.
•Authors should ensure that they have the copyright or permission to use any image in the article. 
•Sources of figures, Tables and diagrams must be clearly indicated, using the Author’s surname and the page number of the publication where such sourced from. 
Example: Source: Ogbuefi, 2000:9)

Headings, Subheadings, Sub-sub headings, Sub- sub-sub headings (three levels)

Use three descending levels of headings consistently throughout the paper. This should be descriptive but brief.

HEADING
•Put all your headings such as chapter headings in Bold CAP and centralize it.
Example: OBI IS A BOY 

Sub-heading
•Put your subheadings in bold, sentence case, and left justify it.
Example: Obi is a boy

Sub-sub heading 
•Put your sub-subheadings in italics, bold, sentence case and left justify it.
Example: Obi is a boy

Sub-sub-sub headings (three levels)
Put your sub-sub-sub headings (three levels) in italics, without bold, sentence case and left justify. Example: Obi is a boy

References

For referencing style, please use the OSCOLA 4th edition. See for instance the link below: https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxlaw/oscola_4th_edn_hart_2012quickreferenceguide.pdf

American or British English?
•Authors are free to use American or British English in the writing of the article but should be consistent in whichever option they choose.

Footnotes
•Authors can use Footnotes (not Endnotes) for amplifying some issues in the article but this should be kept to a minimum.

Author’s copy

•Authors will receive a soft copy (PDF) of their article. The PDF version of the article which they approved for press is their softcopy of the article. 
•Authors can demand for a complimentary print copy of the issue of the journal in which their article is published if they paid the full publication fee. Such can be sent to the Corresponding Author free of charge from our UK address by ordinary post. Authors who want this to be sent to them by courier will have to pay the courier cost which will be communicated to the Author on request (the cost will often depend on the weight of the book and the destination). 

Publication fees

The Journal will start charging publication fee from the December 2024 issue.
 
Professionally proofread-manuscripts
 
•All manuscripts must be spell and grammar checked by a professional English language editor. Authors are encouraged to attach evidence of professional proofreading/editing when submitting their papers. The journal reserves the right to refuse to publish an article if it deems the paper poorly proofread for language and grammar. 
•Should authors want the journal to do the proofreading for them; this will be at an additional cost of £100.

Subscription Price

•The annual subscription Price for the African Journal of Law and Justice System (AJLJS) is GBP80 for institutions and GBP60 for individuals (for print and online access by password).
•For loose copy sale (excluding postage and packaging), the price is GBP45.
•To subscribe or for access by indexing bodies, please contact 
Erika Janse van Rensburg at: Erika@sabinet.co.za

Special Issues and Supplements

The publication of a special issue of the journal is subject to the following terms and conditions:

•The papers to be published in a special issue of the journal must have relevance to Africa and fit into the journal’s focus. Themes not dealing with Africa, but which could be of relevance to African scholarship will also be considered. For instance if the requesting institution is from a non-African country, each paper should have a section discussing its relevance to African scholarship.

•Special issues should be either papers from conference proceedings or special themes.

•The journal cannot be used to advertise any conference or special theme. This is because unless a paper has gone through the normal review processes, the journal cannot give a guarantee that it will publish papers from any conference or special theme.

•Article reviews by the requesting institution should be on the journal’s Review Form and the review must be in line with the journal’s normal peer-review processes (see https://adonis-abbey.com/review-process.php?id=2&jl=1&jid=43)

•Articles accepted for publication by the requesting institution should be accompanied by  two completed  peer-reviewed forms per article,  a correction log indicating how the author(s) have addressed the reviewers’ comments (with page numbers where possible), plagiarism test for the article,  completed copyright forms and evidence of professional proofreading where available.

•No author shall have more than one article (singly or jointly) in the special issue.

•A publication fee of one hundred and Eighty-five British pounds (£185) per accepted paper is applicable.

•The requesting institution pays up front £200 which is the honorarium to be paid to the substantive editor of the journal or any other senior scholar chosen by the publisher to vet the articles selected by the requesting institution.  This sum is deducted from the total publication fees to be paid by the requesting institution. But the sum is nonrefundable if the journal’s substantive editor or any other scholar chosen by the publisher to vet the papers rejects the articles selected by the requesting institution or the requesting institution fails to satisfactorily implement the corrections suggested by the substantive editor of the journal or any other scholar chosen by the publisher to vet the papers. The journal’s substantive editor (or any other scholar chosen by the publisher) to vet the papers selected by the requesting institution has to be satisfied that the recommended corrections have been satisfactorily implemented before those papers will be published. 

•Extra page fees apply for articles that exceed the journal’s word-limit of 6,000. Articles of more than 6000 words and up to 7000 words attract a page fee of £50, while articles of more than 7000 words up to 8000 words, attract additional page fee of £50. The journal does not accept articles that are more than 8000 words.  

•There shall be a maximum of 15 articles on each special issue of the journal. An institutional with more papers can however publish the papers on a number of special issues – subject to the same terms and conditions for publishing new special issues.

•The requesting institution will, on request, be given five print copies of the journal and these shall be sent by courier to one designated address in any country.
 

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