The Society for Advancement of Criminal Justice is a student run academic society that is affiliated with the School of Criminal Justice at The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, which is one of the premier institutes for legal education in this country.

The principles governing the interplay of criminal laws with the society and its conception of morality form the core of the Society. Considering the perennial importance of law and crime in any civilised society and given the increasing awareness regarding individual and collective human rights, the field of criminal justice has attained greater social significance than ever before. The role of criminal justice interventions in producing safe and just societies cannot be overemphasised upon, and the Society aims at fulfilling its greater responsibility towards the society. It allows future lawyers and lawmakers an opportunity to develop a deeper and more holistic understanding of the criminal justice system and the problems that plague it, so as to allow remedial measures to be taken and mitigation mechanisms to be developed. In doing so, the Society follows an interdisciplinary approach that extends to sociological and jurisprudential aspects of criminal justice, as well as to the non-criminal branches of law. In addition to the socio-legal edge of the Society, it is the contemporaneous relevance of its functioning that serves to raise the interest quotient of this Society, making it one of the most active academic societies in the University.

Under the guidance and support of our esteemed faculty advisors, the Society has organised various events that have seen the participation of various eminent personalities such as Hon’ble Justice Altamas Kabir, Ms. Liberty Aldrich and Hon’ble Justice Subrata Talukdar, to name a few. The events themselves have ranged from stimulating talks on the ever-present issues pertaining to the gendered nature of crime and restrictions imposed on the freedom of speech and expression to thought provoking talks and panel discussions regarding recent controversies such as the AIB Roast, Charlie Hebdo incident, etc., and the recent amendments to the Juvenile Justice Act. Apart from the organisational responsibilities undertaken by the Society, it has also reviewed two Consultation Papers issued by the Law Commission of India and has conducted a workshop on Child Rights. The Society has always strived to provide a forum for discussion of legal issues in the field of criminal law and continues to provide students and professionals alike, a platform for exploring the vast and varied arenas in the domain of Criminal Justice Advancement.

Website can be accessed from here: http://sacjnujs.in/

ABOUT NUJS SACJ CRIMINAL LAW REVIEW

The SACJ Criminal Law Review is a journal run by the NUJS Society of Advancement of Criminal Justice which accepts submissions on a rolling basis from external contributors. All submissions must be accompanied with a covering letter indicating the name of the author, title of the submission and the email address and contact number of the author. The submissions will be reviewed and edited by the Editorial Board under the supervision of the Editor in Chief. The link to the journal can be accessed at http://sacjnujs.in/article.php.

SUBMISSION POLICY FOR THE SACJ’S ANNUAL JOURNAL,

NUJS SACJ CRIMINAL LAW REVIEW

Style and Formatting Guidelines:

The SACJ Criminal Law Review accepts submissions in the following categories:

• Long Articles: 3000-5000 words
• Short Articles: 2000-3000 words
• Case Notes/Commentaries: 2000-4000 words
• Legislative Comments: 2000-3000 words
• Book Reviews: 1000-2000 words (only editor-solicited pieces)

The word limit for all submissions is exclusive of the abstract and footnotes. If a submission exceeds the word limit, such excess text must be integral to the author’s central argument in order to be considered for publication. The journal is flexible on the word count depending on the quality of the submission.

The manuscript, including all spellings shall be in British English.

Referencing and citations must be in conformity with the Standard Indian Legal Citation (SILC).

Submissions must necessarily contain an abstract of not more than 250 words. The abstract should be italicized.

Authors must indicate their academic qualifications including the degrees completed and the name of the university/institution to which they are affiliated.

Formatting Guidelines:

• The submission must be word-processed and in Times New Roman.
• The main text should be in font size 12 and footnotes in font size 10.
• A gap of 1.25 spacing must be between the lines of every the paragraph.
• A double line gap must be maintained between all paragraphs and headings.
• All paragraphs must begin with a one-inch indent.
• All hyperlinks must be in black colour and must not be underlined.

Data: Data may be presented in the form of tables, graphs and charts, only where absolutely necessary. The source of the data must be clearly stated.

Punctuation: All punctuation marks should be outside closing quotation marks except an exclamation mark, question mark, dash or parenthesis belonging only to the quotation or a full point at the end of a grammatically complete sentence beginning with a capital letter.

No comma should be used in case references except before second and subsequent page numbers. 

Capitals: Capitals should be used when a specific reference is intended: the Bill, the Cabinet, the Act, the Government, the Constitution (but government and industry), Parliament (but parliamentary). Unless the writer is referring to a court by name, “court” should not have a capital.

Abbreviations: No full points should be used with abbreviations consisting of initials (USA, EU) except in references to judges, law reports and journals (L.JJ., Q.B., C.L.J.). Otherwise full points are retained (ch., Dr., ed., Ltd., St., vol.).

Dates: Use the style: 10^th February 1989; 1988-89; 1990s.

Numerals: Below 20 are to be spelt out.

Italics: The following should be italicised:

• Case names (but note v. (versus) in roman).
• Latin (and other foreign) words and phrases.
• Latin abbreviations cf., e.g., ibid., i.e., loc., cit.,op.cit., per, viz.

Conditions of Publication

Co-authorship

Manuscripts prepared by a maximum of two authors are welcome. Co-authoring of papers among individuals of the same or different institutions is permissible.

Exclusive Submission Policy

All submissions to the Journal should be original and should not be simultaneously considered by any other publication.

Indemnity for Liability

Submissions are accepted for publication on the condition that they do not infringe the copyright or any other rights of any third parties and that the work does not contain any obscene, offensive, defamatory, or racially prejudiced material. All submissions will be checked for plagiarism by the Editorial Board. Infringing, offensive or plagiarised submissions will be liable for rejection.

Copyright Policy

As a condition of publication, the authors grant the Journal an irrevocable, transferable, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to reproduce, publish and distribute their submission(s) in all media including but not limited to print and any electronic services. The licence is granted for the duration of the subsistence of the copyright including any extensions and/or renewals.

Open Access Statement

The SACJ Criminal Law Review is committed to open access for academic work. All the articles published in the SACJ Criminal Law Review are freely accessible immediately from the date of publication. There are no author charges prior to publication and no charge for any reader for accessing and downloading our articles for their own personal use.

1. COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW POLICY

The following are the guidelines to assist the prospective writers in their writing. The paper would be judged on the basis of three parameters which should be kept in mind while writing as well as researching.

1. Content
   • The originality or novelty in the arguments is one of the most important parameters. This parameter shall be a major factor in the screening process of the article.
   • The paper should deal with a topic of ‘contemporary relevance’. However, the term ‘contemporary relevance’ should not be confused to be meaning that the paper should be based upon a recent incident, news or amendments brought, etc. Instead, the phrase means that the issues and arguments presented in the paper should contribute to the contemporary issues, legal debates or points of contention.
   • The research needs to be in-depth and extensive.
   • The content should be legally and factually correct.
   • An analytical article would be preferred over a descriptive article. The paper must not merely paraphrase the work lifted from other sources.
   • Every assertion/proposition should be sufficiently substantiated (i.e. by way of reasoning, examples etc).
   • Define the scope of the paper and provide a roadmap to the paper in the introduction section of the paper.

2. Structure

2.1 The sentences should be short, crisp and clear.

2.2 Avoid repetition and verbosity.

2.3. There should be connect between different paragraphs and the subsequent statement should flow from the previous statement.

2.4. The subsequent argument needs to flow from the preceding arguments. Use of words such as further, moreover, furthermore, additionally can be helpful.

2.5. The language of the article should be lucid. Further, the language should be academic in nature, avoid using terms such as “it is heartbreaking”, or “the move is stupid” etc.

2.6. The paper should be divided into well-defined sub-parts.

3. Footnotes
   • Support the propositions in the paper with appropriate footnotes.
   • Speaking footnotes are permitted. However, they shall be included in the total word count.
   • Follow the SILC style guidelines for footnoting.
   • Use authenticated sources as footnotes.

Decisions of the Editorial Board, at all stages of the review process, shall be final and binding.

Deadline for Submission: Send in your entries to the SACJ e-mail id submissions.sacjnujs@gmail.com by January 30^th, 2017. The subject of the mail should state “Submission to the SACJ Criminal Law Review”.

Queries: Queries on submission may be e-mailed to submissions.sacjnujs@gmail.com. The subject of the mail should state “Query for the submission to the SACJ Criminal Law Review”.