Journal for Juridical Science (JJS)

Author Guidelines

- Please note that these guidelines are applicable as from 1 January 2020 -

1. The Journal for Juridical Science (JJS) is accredited by the Department of Higher
Education (DHET) and the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS). It
is a national scholarly journal that publishes original research contributions in law in
Afrikaans and English. Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary contributions, which bridge
the gap between legal scholarship and other pertinent academic disciplines, are also
welcomed. However, all contributions submitted to the journal must, in the opinion of
the editorial staff, be of sufficient relevance to the journal’s mainly South African
readership.1 An assessment in this regard will be made before the contribution is
submitted for blind peer-review.

2. Manuscripts must, on receipt thereof by the Editor, be in accordance with the editorial
and house style requirements, as stipulated in this document. Manuscripts not in
accordance with this (whether partly or wholly) will not be considered for evaluation.
The manuscript must truly contribute to the relevant field, as well as provide coherent,
clear and well-researched argumentation/analysis. This applies to both articles and
notes (chronicles and case notes).

3. Once the Editor is satisfied that the manuscript (i) is of relevance to the JJS’s audience,
and (ii) meets the editorial and house style requirements, it will be sent for evaluation
to at least two experts in the field so as to determine whether it is publishable. Upon
agreement by an expert to evaluate a manuscript, a period of approximately 6 weeks is
allowed for such a determination to be made. However, an evaluator may be granted
an extended period if convincingly motivated and on condition that such an extension
comprises a reasonable period. Manuscripts are presented anonymously to evaluators
and the evaluators similarly remain anonymous.

4. A manuscript submitted to the JJS must be accompanied by a declaration by the

author(s), to the effect that:

1 The JJS therefore does not, as a general rule, publish contributions that deal solely with legal issues posed
in jurisdictions other than South Africa without clear relevance for the latter jurisdiction (for example by virtue
of a comparative legal analysis) being demonstrated. This requirement may however, in the discretion of the
editorial staff and the relevant guest editor involved, be more flexibly applied in the case of special editions
of the Journal which are, by definition, dedicated to focussed topics that may be analysed in a jurisdiction-
specific context.
 (i) The manuscript (or any part thereof) has not been published, or submitted for
publication, in any other journal and, if accepted for publication in the JJS, will not be
published, either wholly or in part, in any journal other than the JJS;
(ii) The manuscript has been properly text-edited and fully complies with the house
style of the JJS;
(iii) The author(s) has/have removed, for evaluation purposes, any content or
references in the manuscript that may identify the author(s) to the anonymous
reviewers;
(iv) The manuscript contains no actionable defamatory, insulting or infringement of
privacy material; and
(v) The manuscript is entirely original and does not include any borrowings from other
published works that could cause the JJS or any other party legal liability of any kind.

5. Manuscripts may be submitted in English or Afrikaans. The desired length for articles
is 9000 - 11000 words (including footnotes). For notes (chronicles and case notes), the
desired length is 4000 - 6000 words (including footnotes). Solicited book reviews are
also published, with the desired length being 1500 - 2500 words. The journal also
occasionally publishes public lectures by eminent jurists, which appear under the title
Praelectiones tsa rona (a combination of Latin and Sesotho that may be translated as
“Eminent lectures of ours”), and which should generally not exceed the length of an
article. (Book reviews and public lectures will not be subjected to the blind-peer-review-
process and are not subsidised by the DHET).

6. For manuscripts written in English, authors must use UK spelling.

7. An electronic version of the manuscript must be submitted to the Co-managing editor,

Dr JL Matthee, at mattheejl@ufs.ac.za

8. Manuscripts should be submitted in a 12 pt Arial font, with 1.5 line spacing. Both left
and right margins should be justified, and each page must be numbered.

9. Suitable headings and sub-headings must be supplied where necessary. These must
be numbered by means of Arabic figures, for example: 3. is followed by 3.1 and 3.1.1.
Note that headings and sub-headings do not appear in bold type.

10. Where used in the main text, all case titles and titles of legislation must be placed in
italics (for example: “In Volks NO v Robinson1 the Constitutional Court held that the
Maintenance of Surviving Spouses Act2 was not applicable to heterosexual cohabitees”.)
As indicated in this example, footnotes are used to provide the case’s citation and the
year and number of the applicable legislation.

11. Where reference is made to the South African Constitution of 1996 – either in the main
text or in the footnotes – the first reference should be in full. The author may then
indicate that he/she will subsequently simply refer to “the Constitution”. Thus, for
 example: “Sec. 9 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (hereafter the
Constitution)” provides that …” Note should be taken of the appropriate use of italics in
this example. Where reference is made to the interim Constitution of 1993, the
appropriate footnote reference is “Act 200/1993”.

12. Footnotes appear below the main text of each page (and thus not as endnotes). Please
also note that, with the exception of book reviews, the JJS does not make use of in-text
referencing (ie referencing in brackets in the main text). Footnotes must read as follows:

(1) Coetzee & Brink 1986:234-245.

(2) Ngwena et al. 2016:15.
(3) Davis & Geach (eds.) 2019: 37.
(4) Standard Bank v Neugarten 1987 3 SA 695 (W):703A-B.
(5) Where there is a reference to a paragraph in a judgment, the following applies:
National Director of Public Prosecutions and Others v Freedom Under Law 2014
4 SA 298 (SCA):par. 33. Where more than one paragraph is referred to, the
following applies: paras. 27-30.
(6) Cases that are only available on websites such as SAFLII: F v D [2019]
ZAWCHC 77 (24 June 2019): par. 20.
(7) Close Corporations Act 69/186:sec. 55(3)(6).
(8) Close Corporations Act:sec. 56.
(9) GK 162 Government Gazette 1974:103(4157).
(10) GK 162/1974:reg. 3.
(11) Internet sources must be referred to as follows: Anderson “The meaning of
natural law”, http://www.da.org.za/2015/05/da-wins-court-case-for-live-sabc-
coverage-of-congress (accessed on 12 August 2015).
(12) Note that when a source is referred to more than once in the footnotes – even in
consecutive footnotes – the above style should be maintained. There is therefore
no use of (for example) “ibid”, “supra” or “op cit”.
(13) Names of international instruments (such as the United Nations Convention on
the Rights of the Child) are not placed in italics, either in the main text or in the
footnotes.
(14) Footnotes should appear after the first relevant punctuation mark.

13. Bibliography

Only books, chapters in books, articles, theses and internet sources must be
included in the bibliography (by implication, therefore, cases and legislation are
excluded). A complete bibliography must be provided, giving all relevant details. All
sources must be listed alphabetically according to the surnames of the authors.
Prospective authors should refrain from creating a separate section for books, articles
and internet sources.
The following format must be used:

COETZEE JS & BRINK KL

1977. Inflation in South Africa. Acta Economica 27(3):17-36. (Note that “27” denotes
the volume number; “(3)” denotes the issue number and “17-36” denotes the first
and last page numbers of the article.)

DAVIS D & GEACH W (eds.)

2019. Companies and other business structures. 4th edition. Cape Town: Oxford
University Press Southern Africa.

JOHNSON HJ
1977. The effect of legal policy. American Law Review 36(2):23-42. (Note that the
journal’s name is written in full.)

MOFOKENG LL
2009. Legal pluralism in South Africa: Aspects of African customary, Muslim and
Hindu family law. Pretoria: Van Schaik.

STAFFORD RB
2010. A legal-comparative study of the interpretation and application of the doctrines
of the sham and the alter-ego in the context of South African trust law: The dangers of
translocating company law principles into trust law. Unpublished LLM thesis. Rhodes
University.

VOET J
1698-1704. Commentarius ad Pandectas. Vol 1. Den Haag: De Hondt.

WATSON AB
2015. New jurisprudential perspectives on partnerships.
http://www.da.org.za/2015/05/da-wins-court-case-for-live-sabc-coverage-of-
congress (accessed on 12 August 2015).

Several entries under the same author: List from older to more recent date. For example:

DE KLERK W
2006. University law clinics in South Africa. South African Law Journal 122(4):929-
950.

2007. Unity in adversity: Reflections on the clinical movement in South Africa.

International Journal of Clinical Legal Education 12(2):95-104.
 A separate entry is required for an author mentioned under another author (for example
where a chapter appears in a book):

HOEXTER C & OLIVIER M (eds.)

2014. The judiciary in South Africa. Cape Town: Juta.

MHANGO M
2014. Transformation and the judiciary. In C Hoexter and M Olivier (eds.) 2014:68 98.

Where the same author has published more than one source in the same year:

HEATON J
2010a. South African family law. 3rd edition. Durban: LexisNexis.
2010b. Casebook on South African family law. 3rd edition. Durban:
LexisNexis.

Where there are more than two authors of a source:

(1) In a footnote, the reference should, for example, be “Battersby-Lennard et al.

2014:97.”
(2) However, the surnames and initials of all authors should be provided in the
Bibliography, for example:

BATTERSBY-LENNARD J, HAYSOM G, TAWODZERA G, MCLACHLAN M, CRUSH J,

LOMBARD T, LABUSCHANGE I, BITZER V, SIMPSON N, RATTLE J, DUNCAN S,
MARSHAK M, JAMES J & KROLL F
2014. Food system and food security study for the City of Cape Town. Cape Town:
City of Cape Town.

Please note that journal names must be in italics and written out in full.

14. Latin terms such as per se, inter alia, et al and locus standi must be italicised.

15. Full relevant details of the author must be provided, for example: Anthony Anderson,
Associate Professor, Department of Public Law, University of Notre Dame. The
author’s ORCID should also be supplied, if possible. If applicable, details pertaining to
the origin of the manuscript (for example: a paper presented at a conference), as
well as any acknowledgments, must appear in the first footnote to the manuscript.

16. For articles (and thus not for shorter pieces), an abstract of approximately 300-400
words in English must be included, regardless of the language in which the article has
been written. Where an article is submitted in Afrikaans, there is no need for an
Afrikaans abstract. The English abstract must be preceded by an English translation of
the article’s Afrikaans title.
17. Numbers between one and twenty are written out in full, for example: “Children under
sixteen years of age may not partake in any gambling activity”. Figures are to be used
for numbers higher than twenty.

18. References to “section(s)” or “article(s)” in legislation or any other formal legal

document must be abbreviated as follows: sec. 3 (for pural: secs. 5-6) and art. 4 (for
plural: arts. 5-6).

19. Regarding dates and percentages: “19 March 2011” (not “19/3/2011”); “30 per cent”
(not “30%” or “thirty percent”).

20. When cross-referring to a footnote, or citing a footnote in another source, the

following abbreviation must be used: “fn.”

21. Regarding quotations:

(1) All quotations from sources should as far as possible be reproduced as they
originally appear. Square brackets are inserted into the quote for any changes or
interpolations made by the author. Ellipses (“…”) are used to indicate missing
words. If applicable, a footnote should indicate any portions that are emphasised
by the author and any omission of footnotes that appear in the original quotation.
An example of such a footnote is: “Van Zyl NO v Kaye NO 2014 4 SA 453
(WCC):par 24 (emphasis supplied, footnotes omitted).”
(2) Shorter quotations are included as part of the main text and are indicated by
using double quotation marks. Quotations exceeding 50 words must be indented
and placed in a 10 pt font. No quotation marks are used to introduce or conclude
longer quotations. However, double quotation marks are used to indicate a
quotation within such a longer quotation.

22. When introducing a list of items:

(1) Where applicable, use “first” (not “firstly”); thereafter “secondly”, “thirdly”, etc.
(2) Bulleted lists may also be used, but should be used sparingly. Where bullets
indicate full sentences, each bullet must be introduced by a capital letter and
concluded with a full stop. Where phrases are bulleted, lower case and semi-
colons are used at the beginning and end of each bullet (with the exception of the
final bullet, where a full stop is used).

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