About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The Direito, Processo e Cidadania (Law, Process, and Citizenship) Journal, founded in 2021, is an open-access electronic scientific journal promoted by the Graduate Program in Law (PPGD) at the Catholic University of Pernambuco - UNICAP (https://portal.unicap.br/). Its Editorial Board is composed of renowned professors affiliated with higher education institutions in Brazil and abroad.

The editorial line, of a generalist nature, preferably follows themes related to the area of concentration of Law, Process, and Citizenship, which reflects a set of academic concerns focused on understanding the procedural and substantive parameters that contribute to the consolidation of citizenship.

In this sense, it conceives the process as the result of a relational dynamic related to the organization and mobilization of institutional practices aimed at enabling the implementation of normative standards of justice, citizenship, and inclusion. This procedural view is not restricted to the dogmatic analysis of law, reaching the interpretive dimension of law and process, as a hermeneutic construction by state and social instances, as well as empirical studies.

Peer Review Process

The journal Direito, Processo e Cidadania uses a double-blind review system, in which it carefully analyzes submissions in terms of their relevance, methodology, preparation, content relevance, originality, scientific rigor, and ethics. 

The Editorial Board is responsible for managing the entire evaluation process of submitted articles, including the possibility of issuing a negative opinion prior to the evaluation process if the article is outside the focus/scope of the journal, does not meet quality standards, has limited scientific merit, or does not present the required originality.

Direito, Processo e Cidadania has a Scientific Committee and ad hoc reviewers, made up of a group of renowned experts. The Scientific Committee is composed of thematic advisors from various areas of law, from different regions and countries, who contribute to the evaluation process. However, when the subject matter of the article requires specific knowledge, the Editorial Committee will call upon ad hoc reviewers.

The article selection process involves the evaluation of two or three ad hoc reviewers. Each article is sent to two reviewers in a double-blind evaluation process. If one of the reviewers approves and the other does not recommend publication, the article is submitted to a third reviewer after due revision. This review is a tiebreaker. All articles are submitted to the same evaluation system.

Frequency

The Direito, Processo e Cidadania journal is published quarterly, with issues scheduled for publication in January, May, and September of each year.

Periods:

January to April
May to August
September to December.

Open Access Policy

This journal offers immediate open access to its content, following the principle that making scientific knowledge freely available to the public promotes greater democratization of knowledge worldwide.

Declaration of ethics and code of conduct in publication

The journal Direito, Processo e Cidadania, committed to maintaining scientific quality and ethical standards in the editorial process, adopts the norms of the National Research Council (CNPq) contained in the Report of the CNPq Research Integrity Commission and the norms of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) contained in the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines. The measures adopted to promote integrity in the production and publication of the results of philosophical research and scientific research in the humanities are based on the above-mentioned documents. These are: 1) preventive actions (instructions on the responsibility of the author, the editor/editorial board, instructions to ad hoc reviewers); 2) guidelines against misconduct.

Direito, Processo e Cidadania is a journal linked to the Graduate Program in Law at the Catholic University of Pernambuco (UNICAP) and adheres to the institution's editorial policies and procedures. UNICAP oversees its legal research and dissemination vehicle, encouraging publications of academic quality. In seeking integrity and transparency in its activities, the journal Direito, Processo e Cidadania makes its publication ethics public through its website.

Responsibilities of the Editor(s) and Editorial Board

The Editor(s) and Editorial Board are responsible for:

Defining the themes for each issue, disseminating them to the academic community, and sending invitations to authors who are recognized experts in the chosen theme.

Updating the editorial policy and standards for publication in the journal, ensuring the effectiveness of its various processes and requests from evaluation bodies, readers' points of view, authors, committee members, reviewers, and staff.

Monitoring the article submission/evaluation process. After the submission stage, verify the relevance of the submitted texts, as well as the authors' compliance with the journal's editorial standards. Forward them, in the first instance, to an internal evaluation by the Editorial Committee, submission of the article to a plagiarism verification application, analysis of the relevance, methodological and scientific quality of the text. Secondly, the article will be submitted to blind peer review by professors who are experts in the topics covered.

Select appropriate external academic reviewers and guide them on what is expected of the blind peer review process (double blind peer review): a fair and impartial evaluation.

Ensure compliance with the appropriate procedures for evaluating submitted manuscripts, working with the editorial board and ad hoc reviewers to ensure transparency, scientific quality, and confidentiality of the professionals involved in the journal's evaluation and organizational process.

Decide whether to accept or reject submitted articles based on the reviewers' opinions. The decision is guided by the journal's guidelines indicated in the “Instructions to Authors.”

Edit the article after its approval and authorization by the author, adapting the original manuscript to the journal's standards and styles.

Respond promptly to complaints from authors, readers, and members of the journal's committees, addressing situations that have given rise to expressions of dissatisfaction. Take appropriate action against any form of misappropriation of intellectual work.

To fulfill the above responsibilities, the Editorial Board analyzes the following aspects:

Whether the original text is unpublished and exclusive.

Whether it includes: title, abstract, keywords (all in Portuguese and in a foreign language) and references in the metadata and in the full text.

Whether the text has an introduction, development, and conclusion, with the appropriate citations.

Illustrations and graphics in the body of the text.

Authorship: full name, institutional affiliation, biographical summary, and ORCID (only in the system metadata). 

Text written in Word format.

Work in accordance with current technical standards. 

Before submitting the text for peer review, check for any identification of authorship or institutional affiliation in the text.

Co-authors: complete contact information for both authors for the editorial board.

Responsibilities of authors

Authors are responsible for:

Ensuring the originality and accuracy of the information (data, content, and conclusions) contained in the manuscript submitted to the journal Direito, Processo e Cidadania, as well as prioritizing publication in the journal as indicated in the “Instructions to Authors.”

Fraudulent or inaccurate statements/affirmations, problems with authorship, intellectual dishonesty, and plagiarism are unacceptable.

Authorship and/or co-authorship of the text should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the work presented.

Ensure the exchange of information with the journal and/or its website, monitoring the article evaluation process.

Adhere to the criteria indicated in the “Guidelines for Authors” regarding the technical standards to be observed in the graphic layout of articles (title, summary, abstract, keywords, among others).

Identify any funding institutions that sponsor the research that generated the article.

Review the corrections suggested by the reviewers and accepted by the Editorial Board, approving or rejecting them. If you decide to change any suggestions, the adjustments will follow the criteria adopted by the journal. Once the corrections have been approved, no further changes to the text are permitted by the authors.

When submitting the manuscript, authors must accept the Copyright Statement for Open Access Journals.

Notify the editors of any inaccuracies, errors, and/or problematic points related to the content of the submitted and/or published article, cooperating so that a retraction can be made by the author (in cases of plagiarism and/or false data) and an errata by the Editor.

Authors should be aware that the submission of a manuscript does not necessarily imply its publication by the journal Direito, Processo e Cidadania.

Responsibilities of ad hoc reviewers

Reviewers are responsible for:

Assisting the Editor and editorial board in decisions regarding submitted manuscripts, assessing their scientific quality and suggesting revisions when necessary to improve the texts.

Ensure compliance with the evaluation deadline (21 days). If it is impossible to meet the stipulated deadline, immediately notify the Editor so that he or she can seek other reviewers in a timely manner.

Issue well-founded, clear, and objective opinions on the relevance of the topic, its suitability to the journal's standards and mission, its structure, formal aspects, etc.

Ensure the confidentiality of the texts submitted by the editors.

Notify the Editor of cases of copyright infringement and/or plagiarism.

Plagiarism and similarity checking

Fabrication or invention of data - consists of presenting untrue data or results. 

Falsification: consists of fraudulently manipulating results obtained in order to alter their meaning, interpretation, or even their reliability. This definition also includes presenting real results as if they had been obtained under conditions different from those actually used. 

Plagiarism: consists of presenting, as if they were your own, results or conclusions previously obtained by another author, as well as entire texts or substantial parts of other people's texts without the precautions detailed in the Guidelines. Plagiarism is also committed by those who use ideas or data obtained from analyses of unpublished projects or manuscripts to which they had access as a consultant, reviewer, editor, or similar. 

Self-plagiarism: consists of the total or partial presentation of texts already published by the same author, without the proper references to previous works.

The similarity, plagiarism, and self-plagiarism verification application used by the journal is CopySpider, protected by international copyright and trademark laws.

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

The DOI prefix for publications from the Catholic University of Pernambuco (UNICAP) is 10.25247, consisting of the following: prefix, ISSN, year, volume, publication number, and start and end pages of the article.

Journal Backup

Journals are backed up in two ways: the first consists of a scheduled service on the server that performs a daily backup of the entire site, and the second consists of a monthly backup that is performed manually by UNICAP's IT team.

Article Processing Fees

This journal does not charge article processing fees or submission fees.

Open Access Statement

Committed to the wide dissemination of scientific knowledge, this publication adopts the Open Access standard. This guideline ensures that all editorial content is offered in its entirety and without restriction, at no cost to individual or institutional users. In line with the fundamental principles of the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), we grant users the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, and link to the full texts of articles. Additionally, their use for any legitimate purpose is permitted without prior authorization from the publisher or author.

Retraction

When a problem is identified in texts published in Direito, Processo e Cidadania, it is necessary to proceed with the registration and publication of a retraction. The text to be retracted must be presented by those responsible with justifications, containing basic data (title, author, affiliation, abstract, volume, and number). It will not be “deleted from where it was originally published,” but will include the expression “[Retracted Text]” in the summary. The PDF of the publication will have watermarks with the expression “Retracted Text.” This process is monitored by the editors, the Editorial Committee, and the Scientific Committee. We will soon adjust this procedure to the practices recommended by CROSSREF.