Editors of Journal Medical Libanais (JML) play a vital role in maintaining the journal's scientific quality, editorial integrity, and ethical standards. Editors are responsible for ensuring that every manuscript is handled fairly, transparently, and efficiently while upholding the highest principles of scholarly publishing. Editorial decisions must be based solely on the scientific merit, originality, methodological quality, and relevance of the submitted work, without discrimination based on nationality, ethnicity, gender, religion, institutional affiliation, or political beliefs.

Editorial Responsibilities

Editors are expected to:

• Conduct an initial assessment of each submitted manuscript to determine its suitability for the journal's scope, quality standards, and ethical requirements.
• Ensure that all manuscripts undergo plagiarism screening before entering the peer review process.
• Assign manuscripts to qualified and independent reviewers with appropriate expertise.
• Maintain a fair, objective, and confidential double-blind peer review process.
• Evaluate reviewers' comments critically and make informed editorial decisions based on scientific evidence rather than personal opinions.
• Communicate editorial decisions and reviewers' comments clearly and professionally to authors.
• Ensure that accepted manuscripts meet the journal's scientific, ethical, and formatting requirements before publication.
• Monitor the editorial workflow to promote timely and efficient manuscript processing.

Editorial Independence

Editors shall exercise complete editorial independence in all decision-making processes. Editorial decisions must never be influenced by commercial interests, advertising, sponsorship, institutional pressure, or personal relationships. Manuscripts shall be evaluated solely on their academic quality and contribution to medical science.

Confidentiality

Editors must treat all submitted manuscripts and related correspondence as confidential documents. Information contained within a manuscript must not be disclosed to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, editorial staff, or publisher, as appropriate. Editors must not use unpublished information obtained through manuscript handling for personal research or professional advantage.

Conflict of Interest

Editors must disclose any actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest that could affect their impartiality. If an editor has a financial, professional, institutional, or personal relationship with any author or organization connected to a submitted manuscript, the editor must recuse themselves from handling the manuscript, and responsibility should be assigned to another qualified editor.

Ethical Oversight

Editors are responsible for ensuring that all published research complies with internationally accepted ethical standards. Manuscripts involving human participants, animals, or sensitive biological materials must include appropriate ethical approval and informed consent where required. Editors should carefully evaluate ethical concerns before proceeding with peer review.

Research Misconduct

If editors suspect plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, data falsification, image manipulation, inappropriate authorship, undisclosed conflicts of interest, or any other form of research misconduct, they must investigate the matter in accordance with the journal's policies and the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Appropriate editorial action may include requesting explanations, seeking institutional investigation, rejecting the manuscript, issuing corrections, retracting published articles, or notifying relevant authorities where necessary.

Peer Review Management

Editors are responsible for selecting qualified reviewers with appropriate expertise while avoiding conflicts of interest. Editors should ensure that reviewers provide constructive, objective, evidence-based, and timely evaluations. Editorial decisions should consider reviewers' recommendations while remaining independent and based on the overall scientific quality of the manuscript.

Appeals and Complaints

Editors should consider appeals and complaints fairly, objectively, and without bias. Authors should be given an opportunity to respond to editorial concerns when appropriate. Appeals must be evaluated independently and in accordance with the journal's established editorial policies.

Corrections and Retractions

Editors have a continuing responsibility to preserve the integrity of the scholarly record. If significant errors, ethical concerns, or research misconduct are identified after publication, editors should take appropriate action, including publishing corrections, expressions of concern, or article retractions, following internationally accepted publishing standards.

Compliance with International Standards

Editors are expected to perform their duties in accordance with the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and other internationally recognized best practices in scholarly publishing. By adhering to these principles, Journal Medical Libanais ensures fairness, transparency, accountability, and excellence throughout its editorial process.