Roczniki Nauk Prawnych (Annals of Juridical Sciences) publishes only original works presenting important issues in the field of law, its interpretation and application, including the creation of new legal solutions. These studies can have the form of: papers, polemical articles and glosses (commentaries on the decisions of domestic and foreign courts). In addition, the Annals publishes reports on vital international and national scientific conferences and reviews of the latest scientific monographs. Each material published by the Annals is subject to scholarly review. The language of publication is Polish and English. Authors are obliged to read our Review Policy.

All articles published by the Annals are Open Access, which means that they are available online the moment they are published and can be accessed for free.

GENERAL INFORMATION

1. The submitted text cannot exceed 45,000 characters (including spaces).
2. Texts submitted for publication in Roczniki Nauk Prawnych should meet the criteria of a scholarly publication; that is, it should be possible to qualify them as source, polemical or review articles. They should provide research results and critical apparatus in a manner described below in “Preparing the Manuscript for Publication”. They should be written in a clear and comprehensible style.
3. Texts submitted for publication and accepted by the Editorial Board are submitted for review by at least two independent, anonymous reviewers (double-blind peer review) as per our Peer Review Procedure.
4. A scientific editor has the right to choose texts in accordance with the planned thematic range of the issue.  
5. Submissions must comply with the formal and technical requirements described in “Preparing the Manuscript for Publication”.
6. They must be submitted online after logging on to our website (see “Text submission”).

Preparing the Manuscript for Publication

1. A manuscript must not exceed 45,000 characters (with spaces), including an abstract, keywords and a bibliography/references section. It should be submitted electronically as a .doc or .docx file.
2. The title has no more than 130 characters.
3. The text should have an introduction, distinct parts and a conclusions section. The introduction should clearly state the research problem to be addressed in the main body. It must not deviate from the stated subject. The concluding section should provide a response to the research problem. Possible de lege ferenda proposals should also be indicated.
4. The following metadata should be appended:

• An abstract (in English, max. 150 words), which is NOT a summary. It tells the reader why the article is worth reading. It should grasp the reader’s interest rather than making her familiar with the article's content. In other words, it is an advertising slogan which often attracts a potential recipient’s attention. Here, state the research problem should be stated, i.e., a question which the author is going to answer in the main body.
• Keywords (in English).

1. Make sure the submitted manuscript anonymous (prepared for blind review).  You need to make sure that your submission does not reveal the authors’ identity.
2. Include author information in a separate file: name and surname, affiliation, e-mail for correspondence, and ORCID identifier.
3. Format the manuscript with the following in mind:

– centre the main title and section titles, in block capitals, no bold type;
– justify;
– use Time New Roman 12 pt, 1.5 spacing, 2.5 cm margins;
– auto-number the pages;
– auto-indent 1.5 cm;
– longer quotations (over 4 lines) should be block-indented by 1.5 cm; they should start on a new line;
– short quotations are integrated in the main text, no italics;
– in English, the in-text superscript number goes after the final punctuation mark.

8. The text should include a bibliography/references section reflecting the citations used in the main text. Legal sources should be indicated in footnotes. 

• The terms “cf.” and “see” are not synonyms. “Cf.” are used when a cited work is paraphrased, when the author wants to compare her text with the original. “See” stands for “see more/see also”, when the author refers the reader to a publication which provides more information or when it presents a different viewpoint.
• Follow the Chicago Manual citation guidelines.
• Use footnotes, rather than endnotes or references.
• When preparing citations, pay attention to some differences between notes and bibliography. The following guide uses separate examples to show them. Note that comma is the main separator in notes; in bibliography, full stop (period) separates the main elements, while comma separates minor ones.

First citation (footnote):
J. Krukowski, Kościół i państwo. Podstawy relacji prawnych, Lublin 2000, p. 98.

Z. Zembrzuski, Ekumenizm w Warszawie. Studium Historyczno-Teologiczne, Warszawa 2001, p. 21.

Subsequent (short) citations:
Krukowski, Kościół i państwo, 99–101.
Zembrzuski, Ekumenizm w Warszawie, 25.
Bibliography entry:

Krukowski, Józef. Kościół i państwo. Podstawy relacji prawnych. Lublin 2000.
Zembrzuski, Zbigniew. Ekumenizm w Warszawie. Studium Historyczno-Teologiczne, Warszawa 2001.

More examples:

Articles in an edited book (bibliography):

Sitarz M. Zarządzanie parafią w sytuacjach nadzwyczajnych, in: Parafia w prawie kanonicznym i w prawie polskim, S. Głódź, J. Krukowski M. Sitarz (eds.), Lublin 2013, p. 63-92.

Article in a scholarly journal (footnote):

G. Dzierżon, Usunięcie z urzędu kościelnego na mocy samego prawa, Prawo Kanoniczne, (2009) no. 1-2,39–57.

Online magazine article (footnote):

Wendy Cole and Janice Castro, “Scientology’s Largesse in Russia,” Time, April 13, 1992, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,975290,00.html.

Online content (bibliography):

“Historia KUL.” Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski. Accessed February 10, 2020, https://www.kul.pl/historia,149.html.

Zykubek, Andrzej. “Ks. prof. dr hab. Karol Wojtyła – Jan Paweł II.” Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski. Wydział Filozofii. Accessed February 10, 2020. https://www.kul.pl/ks-prof-dr-hab-karol-wojtyla- jan-pawel-ii,13831.html.

Polish normative acts:

Act of 23 April 1964 – The Civil Code, Dz.U. of 2020, item 1740.

Case law:

Judgment of the Supreme Court of 17 February 2005, IV CK 582/04, LEX no. 176007.

Legal writing available in the LEX and Legalis systems of legal information

Andrzej Zoll, “Komentarz do art. 101,” in Kodeks karny. Część ogólna. Komentarz, vol. 1, part 2, Komentarz do art. 53–116, ed. Włodzimierz Wróbel and Andrzej Zoll, LEX, thesis 5. 

It is not acceptable to quote commentaries from legal information systems without indicating the author or the thesis number.

Authors are required to make sure that:

– the work has not been published in print or electronically in another journal or monograph in Poland or elsewhere;
– the work has not been submitted for another journal or monograph in Poland or elsewhere;
– the work is being reviewed with another publisher;
– the work’s content was developed with the substantive and intellectual input of all authors;
– the work was prepared to the exclusion of any conflict of interest between the author(s) and other institutions, companies or organisations; the existence of such a conflict of interest, e.g. commercial funding, is mentioned in the relevant part of the work.