Peer Review Process

Al-Adalah: Jurnal Hukum dan Politik Islam applies a rigorous and transparent peer-review process to ensure the scholarly quality, originality, methodological soundness, and integrity of published manuscripts.

All submitted manuscripts must first meet the journal's Focus and Scope, Manuscript Types, Author Guidelines, and Publication Ethics and Research Integrity Policy before they are considered for external peer review.

1. Initial Editorial Screening

All submitted manuscripts undergo an initial editorial screening before being sent to external reviewers.

The editorial screening is conducted to determine whether a manuscript is suitable for further consideration and sufficiently prepared for external peer review. The screening assesses:

  1. Scope and relevance — whether the manuscript falls within the journal's Focus and Scope and makes a meaningful contribution to legal studies, Islamic law, Islamic politics, socio-legal studies, or related fields covered by the journal.
  2. Manuscript type — whether the submission appropriately corresponds to one of the manuscript types accepted by the journal.
  3. Research problem and purpose — whether the manuscript presents a sufficiently clear and significant research problem, research question, objective, or conceptual purpose.
  4. Originality and potential contribution — whether the manuscript demonstrates an original argument, analysis, finding, interpretation, or scholarly contribution.
  5. Methodological or analytical approach — whether the research method or analytical approach is appropriate to the research problem and is sufficiently explained and transparent.
  6. Evidence and sources — whether the manuscript relies on appropriate, relevant, and sufficiently reliable legal authorities, scholarly literature, empirical evidence, data, or other sources.
  7. Analytical quality — whether the manuscript develops analysis and argumentation beyond merely descriptive presentation.
  8. Research integrity and ethics — whether the submission complies with the journal's requirements concerning originality, plagiarism, authorship, conflicts of interest, research ethics, data integrity, and other publication-ethics requirements.
  9. Scholarly presentation — whether the manuscript is sufficiently clear, coherent, and academically presented to permit meaningful external evaluation.
  10. Technical compliance — whether the manuscript substantially complies with the journal's submission and formatting requirements.

A manuscript may be returned to the author for technical or editorial correction, reclassified, or rejected without external peer review when it does not meet the journal's minimum requirements.

Desk rejection at this stage is based on substantive editorial considerations and is not intended to replace external peer review.

2. External Double-Blind Peer Review

Manuscripts that pass the initial editorial screening are normally evaluated through a double-blind peer-review process.

Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two independent reviewers with relevant subject-matter expertise and, where appropriate, methodological expertise.

The identities of authors and reviewers are kept confidential from one another to the extent practicable throughout the review process.

Reviewers are selected based on their scholarly expertise, relevance to the subject of the manuscript, independence, and absence of conflicts of interest.

The assignment of a manuscript to a reviewer does not imply that the reviewer must recommend publication. Reviewers are expected to provide an independent, objective, and evidence-based assessment.

3. Reviewer Assessment Criteria

Reviewers are asked to evaluate manuscripts according to the following criteria:

A. Originality and Scholarly Contribution

  • Does the manuscript present an original argument, finding, interpretation, or conceptual contribution?
  • Does it advance existing scholarly discussions rather than merely repeat established knowledge?

B. Relevance and Scope

  • Is the manuscript relevant to the journal's Focus and Scope?
  • Does the manuscript address a meaningful issue in law, legal politics, Islamic law, Islamic politics, socio-legal studies, or related fields?

C. Research Problem and Argument

  • Is the research problem or central question clearly formulated?
  • Is the main argument or analytical position sufficiently clear?
  • Does the analysis adequately respond to the research problem?

D. Engagement with Scholarship

  • Does the manuscript engage critically with relevant scholarship?
  • Does it demonstrate awareness of significant national and international scholarly debates where relevant?
  • Does the manuscript establish an appropriate state of the art and identify its contribution?

E. Methodological or Analytical Rigor

  • Is the methodology or analytical approach appropriate to the research problem?
  • Is the research process sufficiently explained and transparent?
  • Are the methods applied consistently?

F. Evidence and Sources

  • Are the legal authorities, empirical materials, data, and scholarly sources appropriate and reliable?
  • Are important claims adequately supported?
  • Are sources accurately cited and represented?

G. Legal, Socio-Legal, or Interdisciplinary Analysis

  • Does the manuscript provide sufficiently deep analysis?
  • Are legal rules, doctrines, institutions, social practices, empirical findings, or interdisciplinary perspectives appropriately connected to the argument?

H. Significance

  • Are the findings or arguments significant for legal scholarship, theory, policy, practice, or broader scholarly debates?
  • Does the manuscript explain why its contribution matters?

I. Organization and Presentation

  • Is the manuscript logically structured?
  • Is the writing sufficiently clear and coherent?
  • Are tables, figures, quotations, footnotes, and references appropriately presented?

For manuscripts addressing Islamic law or Islamic politics, reviewers may additionally assess the accuracy and appropriateness of the use and interpretation of relevant Islamic legal sources, concepts, doctrines, and scholarly debates.

4. Reviewer Responsibilities

Reviewers are expected to:

  • conduct reviews objectively and professionally;
  • provide constructive and reasoned comments;
  • evaluate the manuscript based on scholarly merit rather than personal preference;
  • identify relevant literature that should reasonably be considered;
  • identify substantial methodological, analytical, evidentiary, or ethical concerns;
  • disclose any actual, potential, or perceived conflict of interest;
  • decline the assignment when they lack sufficient expertise or cannot complete the review within the required timeframe;
  • maintain the confidentiality of the manuscript and review process; and
  • not use unpublished information, arguments, data, or ideas obtained through peer review for personal or professional advantage.

Personal criticism of authors is not appropriate.

5. Confidentiality and Use of AI Tools

Manuscripts submitted for review are confidential scholarly materials.

Reviewers must not:

  • share the manuscript or review materials with unauthorized persons;
  • reproduce or distribute unpublished material;
  • use unpublished information obtained through the review process for personal purposes; or
  • disclose the identity of the authors or other reviewers.

Reviewers should not upload confidential manuscripts or substantial portions of manuscripts to publicly accessible generative AI systems or other third-party tools where confidentiality cannot be assured.

Where AI-assisted tools are used in connection with reviewing, reviewers remain fully responsible for the confidentiality, accuracy, and integrity of their review.

6. Conflict of Interest

Reviewers must disclose any actual, potential, or perceived conflict of interest that could affect their impartiality.

Potential conflicts may include:

  • recent or ongoing collaboration with an author;
  • close personal or professional relationships;
  • direct academic competition;
  • institutional relationships that may compromise independence;
  • financial or commercial interests; or
  • other circumstances that could reasonably affect impartial judgment.

A reviewer who has a conflict of interest should decline the review assignment and inform the editor.

Editors must also identify and appropriately manage conflicts of interest when assigning reviewers and making editorial decisions.

7. Reviewer Recommendation

Reviewers provide a recommendation to the editor based on their assessment of the manuscript.

  1. Accept
    The manuscript is suitable for publication without substantive revision.
  2. Minor Revision
    The manuscript is potentially publishable but requires limited revisions.
  3. Major Revision
    The manuscript has potential but requires substantial revision and further evaluation before a publication decision can be made.
  4. Reject
    The manuscript does not meet the journal's requirements for publication.

Reviewer recommendations are advisory. They do not constitute the final editorial decision.

8. Editorial Decision

The final decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief or an authorized handling editor after considering the reviewer reports, the manuscript's scholarly quality, the journal's scope, methodological or analytical rigor, research integrity, and other relevant editorial considerations.

The editor may:

  • accept the manuscript;
  • request minor revisions;
  • request major revisions;
  • request additional review;
  • request clarification or further evidence; or
  • reject the manuscript.

Editorial decisions are not determined solely by numerical scores or by a reviewer recommendation.

The journal's editorial decision must be based on scholarly considerations and must remain independent of commercial interests, institutional affiliation, political considerations, or personal relationships.

9. Revision and Re-evaluation

Authors asked to revise a manuscript must submit:

  1. a revised version of the manuscript; and
  2. a point-by-point response explaining how the comments and recommendations of the reviewers and editors have been addressed.

Where an author does not adopt a reviewer's recommendation, the author should provide a clear and academically reasoned explanation.

Manuscripts receiving major revisions will normally undergo further evaluation and may be returned to the original reviewers.

Minor revisions may be assessed by the handling editor when additional external review is not considered necessary.

A request for revision does not guarantee acceptance. A revised manuscript may still be rejected if substantive concerns remain unresolved.

10. Editorial Independence

The editorial decision-making process is independent of:

  • Article Processing Charges;
  • authors' institutional affiliation;
  • nationality or geographic location;
  • political considerations;
  • commercial interests; and
  • personal relationships.

Editors must not handle manuscripts in which they have an actual, potential, or perceived conflict of interest. Where such a conflict exists, the manuscript should be assigned to another qualified editor.

11. Relationship between Editorial Screening and Peer Review

The journal distinguishes clearly between editorial screening and external peer review.

Editorial screening determines whether a manuscript is sufficiently relevant, original, methodologically or analytically sound, ethically compliant, and technically prepared to proceed to external review.

External peer review provides independent scholarly assessment of the manuscript's originality, argument, methodology, evidence, analysis, significance, and presentation.

Passing editorial screening does not guarantee acceptance, and receiving favorable reviewer recommendations does not automatically result in publication.

The final publication decision remains the responsibility of the journal's editorial team.