Peer review

General information:

In keeping with a long-standing tradition, each issue of BSP is devoted to a single legal topic (theme issue). For this reason, in addition to the Editor-in-Chief, the Editorial Secretary and a Member of the Editorial Board, a Theme Editor (or Theme Editors) is (are) involved in the preparation of each issue of BSP.

Submission of a manuscript and an initial editorial assessment:

Articles should be submitted via Editorial Manager (https://www.editorialmanager.com/bsp/default2.aspx). When an article is submitted, it is assigned by the Editorial Secretary – or, in cases of doubt, following consultation with the Editor-in-Chief – to one of the thematic issues for which submissions are currently being collected. Information on this subject is updated regularly in the form of a call for papers[1][1]. The member of the Editorial Board who is assigned to the particular Theme Issue of the BSP carries out the initial editorial assessment. During this process, we check whether the article is fully anonymous, whether it has not been plagiarized, and whether it meets editorial requirements[2][2].

Editorial screening:

The Editor-in-Chief with the cooperation with Theme Editor(s) of the issue proceed the editorial screening. They take the decision if the revisions should be requested, or the papers should be reviewed or rejected, taking into consideration such criteria as: the originality and the quality of the paper, and the adequacy of the topic with the profile of the journal.

Selection of reviewers:

Reviewers are selected by the Theme Editor(s) of each issue from among individuals who: a) are affiliated in a different unit than the Author of the article, b) are not members of the BSP Editorial board; c) hold at least a “PhD” title and have considerable academic achievements ensuring proper review level.

The review process:

Those asked to review an article have two weeks to decide whether they will undertake the review. They make this decision based on the abstract and the full text of the article, which are made available to them via Editorial Manager. The journal’s Editorial Board employs a double-blind review process, meaning that the identities of the reviewers are not disclosed to the authors, and the reviewers do not know the identities of the authors or of the other reviewers. At the same time, in the interests of transparency, once a year, on the journal’s website [3][3], the Editorial Board publishes a list of all reviewers who assessed manuscripts during the past year. In accordance with the journal’s policy, no Reviewer may review an article whose at least one of the Co-authors is a Researcher employed at the same university as the article’s Author. The Reviewers do not receive the remuneration. The peer review process is conducted via the Editorial Manager system using an electronic review form, the content of which is publicly available [4][4]. The reviewers are asked to review the paper within two weeks and this period may be extended at the reviewer’s request. In such a case the deadline for the review is decided individually. The reviewers should comply with the guidelines for Reviewers [5][5].

The review is ended by explicit conclusion regarding: a) admitting the article to publication without correction (accept), b) admitting the article to publication after correction suggested by the Reviewer (minor revisions), c) admitting the article to publication after introducing significant changes (major revisions) d) admitting the article to publication after introducing significant changes and corrections and re-passing the review process (for improvement and re-review) or e) rejecting the article (reject). Articles with two positive reviews are published.

Making editorial decisions:

The final decision to publish the article is made by the Editor-in-Chief in cooperation with the Theme Editor(s). The comments included in the review, the importance of the issues raised, the originality of the approach to the topic and the quality of the research are taken into account. If the two received reviewers are contradictory another reviewer may be asked for the third review. On this basis, a decision is made to accept the article, refer it back to the author for revisions (providing them with the review), or reject it.

The revision process:

When the Theme Editor(s) consider(s) that, following revisions, the article has the potential to meet the academic and methodological standards required of articles published in BSP, the Editorial Secretary sends the reviews to the Author, requesting that the necessary revisions should be made to the article within two weeks according the standard procedure, however when the required by the Reviewers revisions are significant this period may be longer and is decided individually. The Authors submit the revised article via Editorial Manager. They may also respond to the suggested changes proposed by the Reviewers which, for whatever reason, they have not incorporated in the revised version of the paper.

Final acceptance or rejection of the manuscript:

The final decision on whether to accept or reject an article is taken jointly by the Editor-in-Chief and the Theme Editor(s). The criteria taken into account include the author’s response to the reviewers’ comments, as well as the fact that approximately 15 articles are published in each issue of BSP.

Additional information:

Members of the Editorial Board and Editors are entitled to publish articles in “Bialystok Legal Studies” on the same terms as other Authors. This means that members of the Editorial Board and Editors do not take part in the assessment of their own work at any stage of the decision-making and peer-review process. All matters relating to an article by a particular Editorial Board Member or Editor are handled by other members of the E

[1] https://reference-global.com/journal/BSP?tab=announcements

[2] https://sciendo-parsed-data-feed.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/BSP/Editorial_Requirements_for_Authors.pdf

[3] chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://reference-global.com/download/document/journal/BSP/Reviewer_List.pdf

[4] https://reference-global.com/download/document/journal/BSP/Review_Form.pdf

[5] chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://reference-global.com/download/document/journal/BSP/Guidelines_for_Reviewers.pdf.

Białostockie Studia Prawnicze

Bialystok Legal Studies: A Journal of Faculty of Law, University of Bialystok, Poland

About the journal

Editor-in-chief

All volumes and issues in this journal

Volume 31 (2026)

Volume 30 (2025)

Volume 29 (2024)

Volume 28 (2023)

Volume 27 (2022)

Volume 26 (2021)

Volume 25 (2020)

Journal details

Journal Metrics