Retraction, Withdrawal, & Correction Policy

Article Retraction
An article may be retracted if:

  1. There is a major scientific error that would invalidate the conclusions of the article, for example where there is clear evidence that findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error).

  2. The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission, or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication).

  3. There are ethical issues such as plagiarism (appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit including those obtained through confidential review of others’ manuscripts) or inappropriate authorship.

In order to ensure that retractions are handled according to publication best practice, and in accordance with COPE retraction guidelines, Verdict: Journal of Law Science adopts the following retraction process:

  1. An article requiring potential retraction is brought to the attention of the journal editor.

  2. The journal editor should follow the step-by-step guidelines according to the COPE flowcharts (including evaluating a response from the author of the article in question).

  3. Before any action is taken, the editor’s findings should be sent to the ethics advisory board to ensure a consistent approach in accordance with industry best practices.

  4. The final decision as to whether to retract is then communicated to the author and, if necessary, any other relevant bodies, such as the author’s institution on occasion.

  5. The retraction statement is then posted online and published in the next available issue of the journal (see below for more details of this step).

Please, remember the authors retain copyright for an article, but it does not mean they automatically have the right to retract it after publication. The integrity of the published scientific record is of paramount importance and COPE’s Retraction Guidelines still apply in such cases.

Article Withdrawal
We assume that every author has understood all the publication policies of this journal. Therefore, we sincerely hope there will be no article withdrawals until a final decision is made or while the peer review process is ongoing. Each article will be processed based on the time and stages of peer review (see the peer-review process). If a withdrawal still occurs, the authors agree to the following provisions.

  1. If the author requests the withdrawal of the manuscript while the manuscript is still in the peer-reviewing process, the author will be punished by paying 50 USD per manuscript.

  2. If the withdrawal after the manuscript is accepted for publication; the author will be punished by paying 100USD per manuscript.

  3. If an article has been published as an “Article in Press” (articles that have been accepted for publication but which have not been formally published and will not have the complete volume/issue/page information) that include errors, or are discovered to be accidental duplicates of other published article (s), or are determined to violate our journal publishing ethics guidelines in the view of the editors (such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like), maybe “Withdrawn” from the Verdict: Journal of Law Science website. Withdrawing means that the article content (HTML and PDF) is deleted and replaced with an HTML page and PDF simply states that the article has been withdrawn. In this case, the author will be punished by paying 90 USD per manuscript.

  4. If the author doesn’t agree to pay the penalty, the author will be blacklisted for publication in this journal about 2 years.

  5. If the author request to withdraw a manuscript, an official letter signed by the corresponding author and agency leader must be sent to the principal editor.


Article Correction:
The decision on whether a correction should be issued is made by the editors of a journal, sometimes with advice from reviewers or editorial board members. Handling editors will contact the authors of the paper concerned with a request for clarification, but the final decision about whether a correction is required and if so which type rests with the editors.

Article Removal or Replacement

  1. In an extremely limited number of cases, it may be necessary to remove a published article from our online platform. This will only happen if an article is clearly defamatory, or infringes others’ legal rights, or where the article is, or we have good reason to expect that it will be, the subject of a court order, or where the article, if acted upon, may pose a serious health risk. In such circumstances, while the metadata (i.e. title and author information) of the article will be retained, the text will be replaced with a screen indicating that the article has been removed for legal reasons.

  2. In cases where an article, if acted upon, may pose a serious health risk, the authors of the original paper may wish to retract the flawed original and replace it with a corrected version. Under such circumstances, the above procedures for retraction will be followed with the difference that the article retraction notice will contain a link to the corrected re-published article together with a history of the document.