Conflict of Interest Policy

'ASABIYAH: Jurnal Pengabdian Hukum is committed to ensuring that all published articles reflect objective, impartial, and rigorous scholarly analysis. To maintain public trust and academic integrity, the journal requires all authors, peer reviewers, and editorial board members to declare any potential conflicts of interest that could influence, or be perceived to influence, the manuscript evaluation or publication process.

A conflict of interest, or competing interest, arises when personal, financial, academic, or institutional relationships inappropriately bias or influence an individual's actions, evaluations, or decisions. Conflicts of interest can be actual, potential, or perceived, involving financial interests such as grants, employment, consultancies, or stock ownership related to the community outreach project. Competing interests may also arise from personal and social relationships, academic and institutional affiliations, or strong ideological and political commitments that could impair objective evaluation.

Authors must maintain full transparency regarding all potential conflicts of interest associated with their submitted work. All submitted manuscripts must include a dedicated Conflict of Interest Statement prior to the reference section, explicitly declaring any competing interests or stating that no conflict exists regarding the publication. Authors must also fully disclose all external funding sources and institutional support received for the legal community service project in the acknowledgments or funding statement, specifying the role of the funding organization in project design, data collection, legal analysis, drafting, or the decision to submit the manuscript.

Peer reviewers play a critical role in safeguarding academic objectivity and must decline review invitations if they share an institutional affiliation, have published or collaborated with any of the authors within the past three years, or maintain close personal or professional relationships with them. Reviewers must also recuse themselves if evaluating the manuscript presents a direct financial interest or competitive advantage to themselves or their affiliated organizations, and they must never use unpublished materials gained during peer review for personal advantage.

Editorial decisions are driven strictly by the academic quality, legal relevance, and community impact of the manuscript. Editorial board members must recuse themselves from managing, reviewing, or making decisions on manuscripts authored by themselves, family members, departmental colleagues, or recent close collaborators. When an editor submits a manuscript to the journal, the paper is handled independently by another member of the editorial team, completely excluding the author-editor from all review discussions and editorial decisions. Furthermore, editorial decisions remain strictly independent of commercial considerations, reprint requests, or publisher revenue. If an undisclosed conflict of interest is identified prior to or following publication, the journal will handle the matter in accordance with Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowcharts, which may result in required disclosures, correction notices, expressions of concern, or manuscript rejection and retraction.