About the Journal | Journal of the Cortes Generales

4. Processing and submission of articles at no cost

6. Declaration of ethical commitment and good practicesPolicy

8. Frequency of the Publication

1. About the Journal

In 1984 the Journal of the Cortes Generales was published for the first time with the aim of publishing scientific work from the representative body of national sovereignty. In the spirit of the publication was the understanding that the representative status of Parliament called for its involvement in the legal and political issues of the time, concerning the general interest to society as a whole, as a useful complement to the fulfilment of the specific functions entrusted to the Chambers by the Constitution.

The publication, uninterrupted since then, has maintained its interest throughout these more than thirty years in the subjects of constitutional and parliamentary law, sociology, history and political theory and, in general, in any intellectual reflection that would lead to the understanding of Parliament and its history.

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2. Approach and Scope

On the occasion of the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the approval of the Constitution in December 2018, the Journal is being revitalised and adapted to the new times.

On the one hand, it is committed to a policy of open access, without restrictions, and free reading of its contents from the moment of publication, with the aim of achieving greater dissemination of knowledge linked to constitutional democracy. On the other hand, adding to the hard copy publication the electronic one —within the electronic Open Journal System (OJS) in which it is integrated— in order to facilitate its use and reading both by people who are more familiar with a more traditional consultation model and by those who prefer the current digital media. As it is known, the OJS system facilitates the editorial processes and guarantees the fulfilment of the highest quality standards. Finally, it has organised its sections into the three that have proved to be of greatest interest to the public from an interdisciplinary point of view —«Articles», «Reviews and brief biographies» and «Reports and Parliamentary Case law with commentaries»—, in which the traditional Bulletin of Constitutional Case-law has been integrated. A fourth section has also been added: «Classics of Democracy».

Parliamentary democracy in the 21st century is facing problems and challenges that are characteristic of the evolution of political systems and of the human condition itself: the pages of the Journal are open and grateful to those who wish and are able to contribute their thoughts on the subject.

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3. Open Access Policy

This Journal provides immediate free access to its content in OJS, under the principle that making research freely available fosters greater global knowledge exchange.

The Journal of the Cortes Generales is committed to promoting the dissemination, visibility, and accessibility of its scientific production, and is therefore committed to a policy of open access, which means that all its content from the moment of publication is available free of charge. Users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link the full texts of articles, or use them for any other legal purpose, without the prior authorisation of the editor or their authors. The only limitation on reproduction and distribution is that of proper acknowledgement and citation of the texts. This definition of open access is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI).

Use of interoperability protocols

Thanks to the compliance with the estándar OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative - Protocol for Metadata Harvesting), the Journal of the Cortes Generales facilitates the dissemination of its contents on the Internet, providing a simple interface that allows other portals and information services to access its metadata, in accordance with the Dublin Core format.

Specifications:

OAI-PMH Protocol Version 2.0

Dublin Core Metadata

Link:

https://revista.cortesgenerales.es/rcg/oai

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4. Processing and submission of articles at no cost

No cost is charged for processing and submitting articles and other papers to the Journal of the Cortes Generales.

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5. Anti-plagiarism Policy

The Journal of the Cortes Generales declares its commitment to the respect and integrity of the published works. For this reason, plagiarism is strictly forbidden and texts that are identified as plagiarised, or whose content is fraudulent, will be removed from the evaluation process. The Similarity Check tool powered by iThenticate from Crossref is used for this detection.

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6. Declaration of ethical commitment and good practicesPolicy

The Journal of the Cortes Generales, as an agent of production and transmission of knowledge of the Parliament, assumes the responsibility that the ethical principles and responsibilities in the research activity, such as honesty, objectivity, impartiality and trust, inform the scientific and editorial activity of this institution.

Recognizing the commitment of the agents involved in this process, the editorial team guarantees a detailed record of all interactions carried out during the editing process and the motivation of editorial decisions, both of acceptance and rejection of the publications sent.

The moral and ethical responsibility of the evaluators implies that the evaluation of scientific articles is carried out by the double-blind system. The evaluators provide objective information about the scientific evaluation of the work, the writing style, precision, originality and interest. They also guarantee confidentiality, competence, impartiality and integrity, disclosure of conflicts of interest and respect for deadlines for completing the review.

Authors declare their ethical responsibilities for the originality of the work, authorship, acknowledgements to collaborators, and transparency with respect to funding sources. The opinions and facts comprised in the articles are the sole responsibility of the authors, who must adapt their work with current publication standards.

Furthermore, the use of AI must not lead to data manipulation, plagiarism, or intellectual property violations. Any misuse of AI, whether intentional or unintentional, will be addressed in accordance with the policies of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

National guidelines:

Declaración Nacional sobre Integridad Científica

Código de Buenas Prácticas Científicas (CSIC)

International orientations:

Commitee on Publications Ethics (COPE)

Council of Science Editors (CSE)

The European Association of Science Editors (EASE)

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7. Privacy statement

The protection of individuals in relation to the treatment of personal data is a fundamental right acknowledged in Sections 18.4 of the Spanish Constitution, 8.1 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and 16.1 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The Cortes Generales have a policy of full respect and compliance with the data protection rules. The names and email addresses added in this Journal shall be used exclusively for the purposes stated therein and shall not be available for any other grounds or people. The Journal guarantees citizens the treatment of their personal data confidentially, in a lawful, transparent and loyal manner.

The citizens may exercise their rights related to the protection of personal data (rights of access, rectification, erasure, limitation of treatment, portability and opposition) by letter addressed to the Secretariat General of the Congress, Plaza de las Cortes, nº1, 28071 Madrid.

To find out more on the rights related to the protection of personal data, you can consult the Spanish Data Protection Agency website.

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8. Frequency of the Publication

The Journal of the Cortes Generales has been published every six months since 2019. It publishes two volumes a year, one in June and the second in December.

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9. Policies Section

CLASSICS OF DEMOCRACY

The section «Classics of Democracy» will bring together texts by well-known authors on democracy, both national and international.

ARTICLES

Original research papers will be published in this section.

They will have a maximum length of 60,000 characters (approx. 30 pages) including footnotes, charts, and illustrations and will be adapted to the criteria of the section «Submission of original copies».

They are subject to evaluation by external reviewers in accordance with the following procedure.

Peer Review Process

The Journal of the Cortes Generales submits for evaluation all the originals that it is sent for publication, using a double-blind system whereby the articles are evaluated by at least two reviewers.

Phases of the article evaluation process

Stage 1: Sending the “blind” original, without personal data, accompanied by a review form, which covers questions of originality, relevance and methodological rigor.

Stage 2: Blind evaluation of the original copy by the external and internal evaluators, in the corresponding thematic area.

Stage 3: Submission of the result of the evaluation to the Journal’s Editorial Board for its approval.

Stage 4: Communication of the result to the authors:

Acceptance: the article is accepted if the result of the evaluation is positive.

Non-acceptance: the article is rejected if the result of the evaluation is negative.

Acceptance (with modifications): according to the result of the evaluation, the author must introduce modifications to the content of the article before the article is definitively approved.

*Note on acceptance: Acceptance of a work does not bind its publication, which is subject to the final decision of the Editorial Board. A maximum (non-mandatory) quota of 10 articles per issue is also established.

REVIEWS AND BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES

Papers submitted to the «Reviews and brief biographies» section should be no longer than 12,000 characters —approximately 5 pages (7, at most)— and must meet the criteria laid down in the «Submission of Original copies» section.

The contribution of critical reflection on the subject of the study will be particularly appreciated, beyond the mere summary or synthesis of its content, with the aim of offering a doctrinal vision of the issue and the author’s point of view and consideration in that regard.

They are also subject to evaluation by external reviewers.

REPORTS AND COMMENTED CASE LAW

The Journal includes parliamentary notes and reports. We also publish case law commentaries to facilitate their study and comprehension.

The section «Spanish parliamentary case law with commentaries» features the most recent resolutions from the Constitutional Court or other national courts, while «European case law with commentaries» analyzes the most relevant European rulings, such as those of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) or the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

The works must have a maximum length of 30,000 characters (approx. 12 pages) and will be adapted to the formal criterial that are included in their Author Guidelines.

Likewise, as a complement to the Journal, the «Cuadernos de Jurisprudencia Parlamentaria Comentada», which compile the aforementioned works by year of decision of the corresponding jurisdictional body, are published in paper and in open format.

OTHER SECTIONS

Exceptionally, on the occasion of the publication of special issues, new sections may be created that have communications or other writings that complementing or introducing the set of articles published in this issue, with a variable length depending on the case.

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10. Sales and suscriptions

If you are interested in obtaining the printed version of a specific issue of Journal of the Cortes Generales you should send a request to the following email address: suscripciones.revistacortes@congreso.es.

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11. Cookies policy

The Journal of the Cortes Generales keeps the cookies policy of the Congress of deputies' website, in full compliance with the regulations in force.

The system supporting the review, Open Journal Systems, also uses session cookies and cookies for its native statistics.

Likewise, it should be note that there are other third-party dependent cookies (i.e., Addthis, PlumX, Youtube, etc.), which are necessary to provide complementary services to the OJS itself. This features use their own cookies and they depend on the configuration, functionality and functional scope of the journal services at any given time.

Therefore, the cookies list published below offers a picture that will be updated whenever any change takes place at configuration, functionality and content level, having an impact on the cookies policy:

ojssid -> ojs
_atuvc -> addthis
_atuvs -> addthis
uvc -> addthis
loc -> addthis

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