After submission of a manuscript to Scientific Bulletin of Kherson State University. Series “Legal Sciences”, it undergoes a double-blind peer review process: reviewers do not know the identity of the author(s), and authors do not know the identity of the reviewers.

Stages of the Peer Review Process

1. Preliminary Review (up to 5 days)
Verification of compliance with the Journal’s scope
Plagiarism check (using StrikePlagiarism)
Verification of compliance with formatting requirements
Decision: to send for peer review or to reject.

2. Appointment of Reviewers (2–3 days): Reviewers of scientific materials are appointed by the Executive Secretary of the Editorial Board. Reviewers are selected carefully, taking into account their qualifications and publication history. Each reviewer receives a formal invitation. For the review procedure, an anonymized version of the manuscript is provided. If a selected reviewer does not consider themselves competent to evaluate the quality of the manuscript or realizes that he/she will not be able to provide an assessment within the established timeframe, he/she must immediately inform the Editor-in-Chief.

Criteria for selecting reviewers:

Possession of a PhD or Doctor of Sciences degree
Publications relevant to the subject matter of the reviewed article
Publications in journals indexed in Scopus and/or Web of Science
Absence of conflicts of interest with the author(s)

3. Peer Review (2–3 weeks)

The reviewer evaluates:
Relevance of the topic and scientific novelty
Consistency between the title and the content
Quality of the literature review
Correctness of the methodology
Reliability of the results
Validity of the conclusions
Quality of formatting and language

4. Possible Reviewer Recommendations:

Publish the article in the author’s version (without any changes)
Accept the article after minor revisions
Send the manuscript to the author for major revisions (in this case, after revision by the author, the manuscript must be resubmitted for repeated peer review)
Reject the article without further consideration

5. Revision by the Author

The author receives an anonymous review
Prepares a revised version
Submits a response to the reviewers’ comments

6. Final Decision

The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision based on the reviewer’s recommendations.

Documentation

Reviews are prepared using the Journal’s standard review form
All reviews are stored in the editorial archive for 3 years

Timeframes

Total time from submission to the first final decision: 4–5 weeks
Time allowed for revision: 7 days
Time for repeated peer review: 7 days

Appeal

The author has the right to submit an appeal against a rejection decision within 10 days. The appeal is reviewed by an independent member of the Editorial Board.