Code of ethics and commitment to equality

The journal’s ethics policy and commitments are based mainly on Elsevier's performance policies, as well as on the guidelines or recommended good practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), intended for editors, reviewers and authors.

Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights is a peer-reviewed academic journal legally owned by Pablo de Olavide University.

1. Scope of the journal and funding

1.1. Scope of the journal

Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights is a scientific journal with a long history and international scope that aims to promote reflection and multidisciplinary research on social rights and seeks the highest international excellence.

It is a free and open access journal that publishes two issues a year.

Manuscripts can be written in Spanish, English, French or Italian. They must be the result of original research on the material scope of the journal mentioned. Comments or reflections of experts or personalities who have developed responsibilities in international organizations as well as reviews of scientific publications are also included.

1.2. Funding

Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights is a specialized scientific journal published by the Universidad Pablo de Olavide. It only has the economic support of the aforementioned entity.

2. General journal organization

2.1. Bodies and Protocol for the Selection of Editorial Team Members, Term Lengths, and Renewal Procedures

Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights has an Editorial Team made up of a Director (Editor in Chief), a Managing Editor, an Editorial Board, an Advisory Board and a Review Board.

The Journal's Directorship consists of the Director and the Managing Editor.

The selection of individuals for the Editorial Team in its various roles considers the representation of different perspectives related to the journal's focus. Additionally, efforts are made to ensure gender parity, as well as the inclusion of experts from national and international institutions to enrich the editorial process.

In general, the composition of the Editorial Team —specifically the Managing Editor, the Editorial Board, the Advisory Board, and the Review Board— seeks individuals committed to upholding democratic values and the rule of law, who adhere to the ethical principles governing the journal. Selection criteria include research trajectory, the quality and impact of publications, and prior experience in peer-reviewing scientific articles.

The established criteria are as follows:

1. The Director is appointed directly by the Honorary President. After their passing, the appointment will be made by the Editorial Board. The term lasts six years and is automatically renewable unless expressly communicated otherwise.

2. The Managing Editor is appointed directly by the Director. The term lasts six years and is automatically renewable unless expressly communicated otherwise.

3. The Editorial Board is a collegial body composed of the Director, the Managing Editor, and up to fifteen additional members, who are renowned experts from national and international institutions. Members are proposed by the Director and the Managing Editor and elected by the Editorial Board before the end of their term through a simple majority secret vote. Their term lasts four years and is automatically renewable unless a member communicates otherwise three months before its expiration.

4. The Advisory Board is a collegial body. Members are proposed by the Director, the Managing Editor, or the Editorial Board and elected by the Editorial Board through a simple majority secret vote. Their term lasts four years and is automatically renewable unless expressly communicated otherwise.

5. Members of the Review Board are appointed by the Director and the Managing Editor. The selection criterion is their expertise in the subject matter under review. The appointment is communicated to the Editorial Board, which has ten calendar days to raise objections if deemed inappropriate. In such cases, the final decision rests with the Editorial Board.

2.2. Rights and Obligations of the Editorial Team
All members of the Editorial Team shall uphold the integrity and continuous improvement of the Journal and adhere to its intellectual and ethical commitments.

2.2.1. Duties and Responsibilities of the Director
The Director shall oversee and be responsible for the coordination and representation of the journal.

The Director shall manage and be responsible for relations with the Editorial Board, the Advisory Board, the Review Board, and the Digital Publishing Service of Pablo de Olavide University. Additionally, they shall handle relations with other institutions regarding any matter related to the journal.

The Director shall appoint the Managing Editor.

The Director, assisted by the Managing Editor, shall convene meetings of the Editorial Board.

The Director, assisted by the Managing Editor, must inform the Editorial Board of published issues and rejected articles in each volume and issue.

The Director, assisted by the Managing Editor, must communicate the annual statistical reports to the Editorial Board.

The Director, assisted by the Managing Editor, shall ensure the highest scientific quality of the journal, its recognition and inclusion in national and international databases, and its evaluation for obtaining quality seals or certifications. In this task, they shall be supported by the Managing Editor and other members of the Editorial Board.

The Director, assisted by the Managing Editor, shall be responsible for maintaining and updating the journal’s website and all aspects related to the layout and publication of articles, reviews, or commentaries (except for DOI activation).

The Director, assisted by the Managing Editor shall manage the receipt of submissions and oversee their processing throughout the evaluation and publication process (preparation and delivery of manuscripts—including front matter and statistics—layout process, sending proofs to authors, reviewing pre-print versions, and notifying authors of publication).

The Director shall have a casting vote in case of a tie in Editorial Board deliberations.

2.2.2. Duties and Responsibilities of the Managing Editor

The Managing Editor shall assist the Director in informing the Editorial Board about published issues and rejected articles in each volume and issue.

The Managing Editor shall assist the Director in communicating the annual statistical reports to the Editorial Board.

The Managing Editor shall support the Director in maintaining the journal’s highest scientific quality, its recognition and inclusion in national and international databases, and its evaluation for obtaining quality seals or certifications.

The Managing Editor shall assist the Director in maintaining and updating the journal’s website and all aspects related to the layout and publication of articles, reviews, or commentaries (except for DOI activation).

The Managing Editor shall assist the Director in receiving submissions and managing them throughout the evaluation and publication process (preparation and delivery of manuscripts—including front matter and statistics—layout process, sending proofs to authors, reviewing pre-print versions, and notifying authors of publication).

The Managing Editor shall issue certificates for members of the Editorial Team.

The Managing Editor shall manage the journal’s English-language profiles.

The Managing Editor shall prepare meetings with the Director and draft minutes of Editorial Board meetings. They shall also be responsible for archiving the minutes.

The Managing Editor shall oversee the journal’s dissemination through social media and other channels.

The Managing Editor shall collaborate with the Director in institutional relations, exchanges, indexing, and any other tasks that enhance the journal’s quality and recognition.

2.2.3. Duties and Responsibilities of the Editorial Board

Members of the Editorial Board must attend convened meetings. Given that some members are from other countries and regions, meetings may be held remotely to ensure effective participation without physical presence.

Members of the Editorial Board shall collaborate with the Director and the Managing Editor in the preliminary review of submissions to decide which will undergo evaluation and which will be returned to the authors.

Members of the Editorial Board shall contribute to the journal’s dissemination.

Members of the Editorial Board shall advise and collaborate with the journal’s leadership on any tasks necessary for its proper functioning, including ensuring punctuality and periodicity, as well as maintaining and improving the journal’s scientific quality.

Members of the Editorial Board shall ensure compliance with the journal’s editorial policies.

Members of the Editorial Board shall appoint members of the Advisory Board, ensuring balanced representation across relevant disciplines and affiliated institutions.

Members of the Editorial Board may propose improvements to editorial policies and any other relevant aspects.

2.2.4. Duties and Responsibilities of the Advisory Board

Members of the Advisory Board shall collaborate with the journal to enhance its scientific quality and promote its content.

Members of the Advisory Board may propose improvements to editorial policies and any other relevant aspects.

At the request of the Journal’s Directorship, members of the Advisory Board shall assist and advise on the publication of received studies, exceptionally evaluate certain submissions, and propose reviewers.

3. Confidentiality and treatment of conflicts of interest of the Journal's bodies

Management, the Editorial Board and the Advisory Board shall not provide information about the manuscripts submitted for publication to any person other than the respective author and the potential or current reviewers.

Under no circumstances may unpublished articles be used for research by members of the Management team, the Editorial Board, the Advisory Board or any other person who may have access to them, except with the express consent of the author. The information or ideas obtained through the evaluation by the evaluators must also be kept secret and must not be used under any circumstances for personal or scientific benefit.

Management, the Editorial Board, the Advisory Board or the Review Board should refrain from evaluating manuscripts with respect to which they may find themselves in a situation of conflict of interest in case of close relationships or connections with the authors or their institutions.

The authors must inform the Lex Social Editorial Team of any conflict of interest or serious issue they may have with the editors or any other member of the journal. Lex Social will establish the appropriate measures and mechanisms to prevent and resolve any conflicts of interest that may arise among reviewers, authors, and editors of each issue.

4. Copyright and data processing

By submitting their manuscripts to Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights, authors guarantee that their work is original. In addition, authors assure that it has not been published in any form previously; and that it is not being prepared for publication elsewhere.

The authors grant the Publisher the royalty-free right to exploit and sublicense the work throughout the world, in all forms and media of expression, now known or developed in the future, for educational and academic purposes.

Notwithstanding the above, authors do retain the right to present, exhibit, distribute, develop and publish their work to advance their scientific career so long as their original publication in Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights is duly noted.

Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights is an open access journal and its content may be, without prior authorization from the publisher or authors, freely used, read, downloaded, and distributed in any medium for non-commercial purposes only. In all cases, the source and author of the original publication must be cited and any changes made must be clearly indicated so as to ensure the lack of endorsement by the publisher or authors.

The Journal is essentially published online through the Open Journal Systems (OJS), which integrates the OAI (Open Archive Initiative) protocol for greater dissemination and transmission of its contents online, as well as for greater accessibility and reuse of its contents by the scientific community and society in general.

5. Concerning the authors

5.1. Promoting ethical conduct

The Journal's Management shall ensure that the appropriate measures are taken to ensure the quality of the published material and to avoid the publication of plagiarism and non-original works.

Authors submitting articles to Lex Social must certify that their work is original, unpublished, and entirely their own creation. Otherwise, editors and editorial staff shall take reasonable measures to identify and prevent the publication of articles involving research misconduct, including but not limited to plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication. That is, the journal may take appropriate actions as deemed necessary and in accordance with the provisions of this ethical code.

5.2. Authors guidelines

The publication process and instructions will be published and kept duly updated in the Journal so that authors have all the information they need at all times. In particular, the operation of the peer review process for received articles, to which all authors must submit, will be published.

5.3. Review and decision-making process and publication

The review process is subject to strict confidentiality conditions. Authors will not know the identity of the reviewers, thus avoiding conflicts of interest that may arise. In this regard, the Journal's Management will have a strict duty of confidentiality.

Decisions regarding the acceptance or rejection of an article for publication shall be based solely and exclusively on the quality of the article, that is, on its clarity, originality, and relevance, as well as on its suitability to the objectives and scope of the journal. In any case, decisions must always be well-founded. Ultimately, the Editor in Chief and Managing Editor of the journal will be responsible, once the evaluation process has been completed, and after prior consultation with the Editorial Board, for taking the decision of which manuscripts submitted to the journal will finally be published in it.

In no case will articles be rejected due to criticisms or opinions diverging from majority positions and/or expressed by members of the Journal's bodies (Management, Editorial Board and/or Advisory Board), as long as they are high quality and justified contributions.

Likewise, the decision, whether to accept or reject, will always be communicated to the author, and must be well-founded, especially in the case of rejection. This decision should not be subsequently modified, unless there have been serious problems in the publication process, which should also be duly justified.

In any case, changes in the structure of the journal will not affect decisions previously taken regarding the acceptance or rejection of manuscripts submitted for publication.

5.4. Rights and Authors’ obligations

5.4.1. Originality and accuracy of data

Manuscripts submitted by authors for publication in the Journal must contain the necessary data to allow subsequent citation by other authors.

Authors those original manuscripts to Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights attest that the work is original and unpublished, that it does not contain parts of other authors or other fragments of works already published by the authors. In addition, they confirm the veracity of the data.

In such cases, the Journal's Management will take appropriate measures, which will generally include communicating the complaints or claims to the author, as well as further communication to the corresponding institutions or research organizations. If unethical conduct is confirmed and discovered after the publication of the article, even if years have passed, a correction, retraction or other type of note will be published to record the act that occurred.

5.4.2. Multiple and/or repetitive and/or simultaneous publications

Author should not publish articles in which the same results are repeated in more than one scientific journal or any other publication of an academic or non-academic nature. Submitting the same original to more than one journal simultaneously is considered unacceptable conduct.

5.4.3. Attributions, citations and references

Authors must always provide the correct indication of the sources and contributions mentioned in the article along with their DOI or URL if any.

Authors should cite in their manuscripts works that have been relevant to their own work. Information obtained through sources other than previously published works may only be used with the express permission of the corresponding author.

5.4.4. Authorship

Authorship of articles should be limited to persons who have contributed significantly to the determination, design and preparation of the work. All significant contributors should be cited as co-authors. If other persons have participated in any substantive aspects of the work, they should be appropriately acknowledged in the article.

Authors should ensure that all co-authors are duly included, and that no person is unjustifiably mentioned as an author. Likewise, all authors should have seen and approved the final version of the paper and its submission for publication.

5.4.5. Access and Retention

If the members of the Editorial Board -or, where appropriate, the Review Board - consider it appropriate, the authors of the articles should also make research sources or data available, which may be retained for a reasonable period of time after publication and possibly be made accessible.

5.4.6. Conflict of interest and disclosure

Authors are required to declare explicitly that there are no conflicts of interest that may have influenced the results obtained or the interpretations proposed. Authors must also indicate any agency and/or project funding from which the research article arises.

Any conflict of interest that arises will be resolved by Lex Social in accordance with the provisions set forth in Section 3 of this ethical code.

5.4.7. Errors, Corrections, and Retractions in published articles

The correction, retraction, or removal of articles already published in Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights will occur only in exceptional cases and after review and approval by the journal’s editorial team. The guidelines recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) will be followed.

The policy of Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights regarding corrections, retractions, and article removals aims to ensure transparency and the highest level of reliability in the process. To this end, we distinguish between:

• Errata: Minor, straightforward changes that do not affect the article’s content or research results, whether caused by the authors or the editorial team.
• Retractions: Significant changes that substantially impact the work’s content and findings, as well as cases of research misconduct, writing, or publication issues. In line with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), retractions apply to major errors, falsification, plagiarism, redundant publication, unauthorized use of materials, copyright or ethical violations, or compromised peer review due to conflicts of interest.

In both cases, authors must notify the journal via email at revistalexsocial@gmail.com or revlexsocial@upo.es, submitting a justification explaining the reasons and a revised version of the work highlighting the modifications. The editorial team will assess whether the work requires re-evaluation, depending on the relevance of the changes.

Once the correction/retraction is approved, the editorial team will publish a notice on the website detailing the circumstances and informing readers of the errors and amendments. Additionally, the following issue will include a list of errata, corrections, or retractions, specifying the article title, error, and correction.

If major changes are necessary, a new version of the article will be published, referencing the modifications. In cases of retraction, a watermark reading “Retracted Article” will be added to the work, and these words will also appear in its title.

Finally, an article may be removed if it contains severe, irreparable issues or due to legal and judicial reasons. In such cases, the article’s metadata will be preserved, but the text will be replaced with a document explaining its new status.

5.4.8. Responsibility

The responsibility for the content of the articles published in Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights lies exclusively with the authors. They also agree to carry out a review of the most current and relevant scientific literature on the subject-matter, taking into account the different schools of thought in a pluralistic manner.

5.4.9. Authors' rights

Authors have the right to withdraw the article submitted for evaluation at any point throughout the evaluation process and up until its publication.

An article withdrawn for not passing the evaluation process will be counted as “rejected” in the journal's transparency statistics.

An article withdrawn before or after the evaluation process has begun will be counted as “withdrawn” in the journal's transparency statistics.

5.5. Obligations, Responsibilities and Rights of the Review Board 

5.5.1. Contribution to the editorial decision

Reviewers assume the commitment to carry out and guarantee a critical, honest, objective, constructive and unbiased review of both the scientific and literary quality of the manuscript.

5.5.2. Respect for review times

Reviewers who do not feel competent in the subject matter to evaluate or who is unable to complete the evaluation in the scheduled time, should immediately notify the editors. Reviewers undertake to evaluate the papers in the shortest possible time in order to meet the deadline, set at 30 days from acceptance. Acceptance must be issued within a maximum of 8 days from the sending of the request.

5.5.3. Confidentiality

Each assigned manuscript should be treated as confidential. Therefore, these texts should not be discussed with others without the express consent of the editors. Their responsibility, free from conflicts of interest, is to objectively assess the designated sections in the evaluation form within the specified timeframe (see Reviewer Guidelines) and to report any awareness of similarities, plagiarism, falsification, or related issues concerning other works. Peer reviewers will not know the authors or the other reviewer, thus avoiding any conflicts of interest that may arise. In this regard, the Management of the Journal will have a strict duty of confidentiality.

5.5.4. Objectivity

Peer review should be conducted in an objective and impartial manner and should provide clear and precise judgments and assessments that are sufficiently argued and impartial. In particular, reviewers should point out relevant publications not cited by the author in the manuscript, as well as possible partial or total similarities or identities of the manuscript with other articles already published of which the reviewer has personal knowledge.

Reviewers are obliged to give reasons for each of their evaluations, always using the “ad hoc” review template. Reviewers will deliver a complete critical report with appropriate references according to Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights review protocol.

5.5.5. Gender perspective

Lex Social, Social Rights Journal upholds and promotes equal opportunities in research and scientific production. Its established peer-review system mandates that evaluation criteria and reviewers’ decisions must incorporate a gender perspective. This practice aims to identify potential biases for review and, where necessary, correction—preventing their perpetuation.

In the manuscript review, it should be assessed whether the studies include a sex- and/or gender-disaggregated analysis and whether they address their relevance in the research design, results, discussion, and limitations.

5.5.6. Text visualization

Reviewers undertake to accurately indicate the bibliographical references of fundamental works possibly forgotten by the author. Reviewers should also inform the editors of any similarities or overlaps of the manuscript with other published works.

5.5.7. Anonymity

To ensure that the review process is as objective, impartial and transparent as possible, the identity of the authors as well as any information about the origin of the document is suppressed before the papers are sent for peer review. If, for any reason, the identity of the authors, their institutional affiliations or any other data that jeopardizes the anonymity of the document is compromised, reviewers must immediately notify the Editor in Chief or Managing Editor and refrain from carrying out their evaluation.

5.5.8. Rights of reviewers

Reviewers assist the Journal's Management in decisions regarding the publication of articles and thus contribute to the improvement of the Journal.

The reviewers have the right to request help from the Journal's Management.

They also have the right to ask the Journal's Management for accreditation of their collaboration with the Journal in the evaluation of manuscripts.

5.6. Management Team commitments

5.6.1. Publication decision

Management (henceforth, “editors”) will guarantee the selection of the most qualified and scientifically specialized reviewers to issue a critical and expert evaluation of the work, with the least possible biases. Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights chooses to select two reviewers for each paper in order to guarantee greater objectivity and correct assessment in the review process. In the case of different evaluations, a third reviewer would be selected.

5.6.2. Honesty

Editors evaluate the articles submitted for publication on the basis of the scientific merit of the contents, without discrimination of race, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic origin, nationality or political opinion of the authors.

5.6.3. Confidentiality

The entire team is committed to not disclose information related to the manuscripts submitted for publication to persons other than authors, reviewers and editors, as well as to the confidentiality of the manuscripts, their authors and reviewers, so that anonymity and intellectual integrity of the entire process is preserved.

5.6.4. Conflict of interest and disclosure

The team undertakes not to use in their research the contents of the articles submitted for publication without the written consent of the authors.

Unpublished articles may not be used under any circumstances in the research of reviewers without the express consent of the author. Information or ideas obtained through the peer review process must be kept confidential and must not be used under any circumstances for personal benefit.

Reviewers must refrain from evaluating manuscripts in which they may have a conflict of interest due to close relationships or affiliations with the authors or their institutions.

Before conducting their evaluation, reviewers must disclose to the Journal’s Editorial Board any potential conflicts of interest, whether personal, academic, or commercial.

5.6.5. Respect for deadlines

The team is committed to comply with the time limits for reviews and publication of accepted papers, to ensure a rapid dissemination of their results.

6. Detection of plagiarism and fraud

The author or assignor exempts the journal from any and all liability in relation to copyright infringement, agreeing to use all efforts to assist the journal in the defence of any accusation, extrajudicial and/or judicial measures.

In accordance with its publication policies, the journal Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights obliges each manuscript to be detected for plagiarism. These are sent to Urkund for detection. If, after the plagiarism check, the coincidences found in each study are considerable, they are analysed in detail, since a result showing a high percentage of similarity does not automatically imply that plagiarism exists. Detections are analysed by the Management team. After a review, a final decision is made. If plagiarism is found, the author is contacted so that they may proceed, depending on the conclusions, to a correction or the work is rejected.

If plagiarism is detected once the article has been published, the author will be contacted to proceed in the same terms as above.

In the case of an issue that is coordinated or directed by another responsible ad hoc person, usually in cases where the publication is the result of a research group or stem from the Proceedings of scientific events, any communication in this regard will also be made with them, as the person responsible for having carried out this evaluation and editing tasks.

Furthermore, falsifying data and acting in violation of copyright and intellectual property rights will constitute scientific fraud.

7. Artificial Intelligence Usage Policy

The editorial team of Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights establishes the following guidelines for the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in scientific research, applicable to both the authors and the members of the editorial committee and the evaluators. These policies aim to ensure transparency, ethical integrity and quality of scientific publications.

7.1. Authorship conditions

AI resources cannot be included as authors or co-authors in any publication of Lex Social. Authorship implies ethical and intellectual responsibility, attributes that cannot be assumed by an automated system. Human authors must be solely responsible for the scientific content.

7.2. Declaration of use of AI

The use of AI tools that have significantly contributed to the elaboration and development of the work (such as systematization of information, development of algorithms or data processing, among others) must be clearly specified in the section: “DECLARATION OF USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE”. Authors must describe the type of software used and its purpose. Failure to provide this recognition will be considered a breach of the Code of ethics and may lead to the rejection of the scientific article.

7.3. Use of AI for stylistic review

It is not necessary to declare the use of AI tools when they are used solely for proofreading, improving the writing, or to ensure the stylistic consistency of scientific manuscripts. These applications are permitted as long as they are not used to generate new content or rephrase the text. Authors are responsible for ensuring that the final version of the manuscript is original and human authored.

7.4. Proofreading and improving texts

It is not necessary to declare the use of AI when these tools are used exclusively for proofreading, improving the writing, or to ensure the stylistic consistency of manuscripts. AI may be used to optimize readability and remove errors, but it is prohibited to create stand-alone content. Authors are responsible for ensuring that the final version of the manuscript is original and human authored.

7.5. Use of AI by reviewers

The use of AI by reviewers of Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights during the evaluation of scientific articles is prohibited. The academic review must be based on the critical judgment and experience of the reviewer, without the mediation of automated tools that may affect the impartiality and confidentiality of the review process.

These guidelines promote the ethical use of AI in academic research and aim to preserve the authenticity and originality of the publications of Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights. 

8. Commitment to gender equality

Lex Social, Journal of Social Rights expresses its commitment to the use of inclusive and non-sexist language. To this end, it recommends authors to use it in the "Guidelines" for the submission of any contribution (study, commentary, review or analysis) and that it be oriented according to the Guide for non-sexist language prepared by the Ministry of Equality.

In the event that there are differences in the source data in terms of sex, this fact should be mentioned in the article.

On the other hand, it is emphasized that the journal advocates equal gender representation in the composition of the different Committees and that even in the Management Team (Management and General Secretariat), where the female gender is usually underrepresented, most of its members are women.

9. On the handling of complaints, claims and appeals

Complaints, claims and appeals will be managed by the editorial team. If there are well-founded suspicions of non-compliance with the ethical standards set forth in this Code, the Journal's Editorial Board shall immediately investigate the matter. For this purpose, it may consult with the Editorial Committee and seek advice from the Advisory Board.

If the Editor-in-Chief ultimately determines that an author or authors have violated the Journal's ethical publication standards, they reserve the right to impose sanctions. These may include: refusal to accept any future manuscripts submitted by the author(s), rejection of manuscripts under review by the author(s), as well as retraction or correction of the author's published work in the Journal.

The Journal's Editorial Board, with potential advice from the Editorial Committee and the Advisory Board, shall decide whether a retraction of the work from the Journal is necessary or if a correction suffices.

Furthermore, if well-founded suspicions of non-compliance with this Code concern a member of the Editorial Committee or the Advisory Board, the Journal's Editorial Board shall immediately investigate the matter. It may seek advice from the Editorial Committee and/or the Advisory Board, excluding the participation of the affected member(s). If the Editor-in-Chief ultimately determines that a member or members of the Editorial Committee or Advisory Board has violated these ethical standards, they may take necessary measures, which could include immediate dismissal.

Similarly, if the subject of these suspicions of non-compliance with this Code is the Journal's Editorial Board itself, the entire Editorial Committee shall order the investigation and ultimately decide whether any disciplinary measures should be taken, which could include immediate dismissal.

Additionally, the editorial team responsible for each issue or the Secretariat must promptly address suggestions or complaints received through Lex Social's email, forwarding them to the executive team. Should the editor or editors become aware of any allegations of research misconduct related to an article published in their journal, they must follow COPE guidelines (or equivalent) to address such allegations and bring them to the attention of the Journal's Editorial Board.

All reader or author complaints and suggestions must be submitted to the Journal's email: revlexsocial@upo.es or revistalexsocial@gmail.com. Finally, the outcome of the process will be communicated via the Journal's email.

10. Archive policy

The journal incorporates CLOCKSS (Controlled Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe), LOCKSS and PKP Preservation Networks that enable libraries to preserve selected electronic journals by regularly checking registered journal websites for recently published content and archiving it for future preservation.