Important Announcement: Romanian Journal of Legal Medicine – RJML

Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to inform you that as of December 2024, the new Board of Directors of the Romanian Society of Legal Medicine (SMLR) has taken over the responsibility of restructuring the Romanian Journal of Legal Medicine (RJML). Our immediate priorities include defining new editorial directions and appointing a renewed editorial board in the shortest possible time.

Context

Since March 2024, RJML has lost its indexing in Thomson Reuters/Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science due to editorial policies deemed non-compliant with required standards and an inconsistent publishing activity. However, the journal retains its other indexations, including EMBASE, CNCSIS, SCOPUS, and Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, which remain active and valuable.

Additionally, we wish to announce that Professor Cristian Curcă, MD, PhD, who served as Editor-in-Chief, resigned from his position in October 2024 at his own request.

Future Directions

Our main objective is to restore RJML’s prestige and align it with international standards to regain its inclusion in Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science. The journal remains open for the publication of high-quality scientific work in the field of legal medicine, adhering to the criteria necessary for reaccreditation.

In the upcoming period:

• We will define a new editorial strategy aligned with current academic and professional requirements.
• We will enhance internal evaluation and publication processes.
• We will appoint a new editorial team dedicated to relaunching RJML.

We sincerely thank you for your continued trust and support and assure you that we will provide updates on future developments soon.

Yours respectfully,

Prof. Dr. Călin Scripcaru

President, Romanian Society of Legal Medicine (SMLR)

RJLM              

Romanian Journal of Legal Medicine, RJLM aims to restore a long-standing tradition of scientific publishing activity in legal medicine in Romania.
In 1884 Professor Alexandru Sutzu, a prominent psychiatrist and forensic pathologist, founded his short-lived Journal of Psychiatry and Legal Medicine. The first full professor of legal medicine is prof. George Bogdan at Univ. Gr. T. Popa in Iassi in 1895. Then followed as a full professor, Mina Minovici in Bucharest, in 1897. In 1892 prof. Mina Minovici founded the first city Morgue in Romania in Bucharest which he named in 1897 as Institute of Legal Medicine, an up to date and well-known forensic and legal medicine institution in Europe at that time.

Professor Nicolae Minovici (1868-1941), the brother of Mina Minovici, himself a prominent professor of legal medicine, founded in 1936 the scientific and professional Association of Legal Medicine doctors and its Journal, Journal of Legal Medicine, the very first publication devoted to legal medicine. The Journal became instantly the platform for speciality until 1940, when it came to an abrupt end due to the Second World War (1936-1940).

Between 1961-1981 a new publication of legal medicine emerged named as Documentary Bulletin for Judicial Medicine and Criminalistics, renamed after 1981 as Problems of Legal medicine and Criminalistics which ended abruptly in 1985 with the building of the historical Institute of Legal Medicine from 1892, a blow addressed to the legal medicine system by the communist regime. With huge efforts and large support from the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Internal affairs and of the Public Ministry, a new legal medicine Institution is set up in Bucharest in 1989, the National Institute of Legal Medicine Mina Minovici, the actual building that hosts legal medicine activity in Bucharest.

A new promising era began in 1993 when the Association of Legal Medicine doctors of Nicolae Minovici was reorganized as the Romanian Society of Legal Medicine and its journal, Journal of Legal medicine, rejuvenated as Romanian Journal of Legal Medicine. The first chief editor of the rebirthed Journal was between 1993-2000 the honorary member of Romanian Academy Vladimir Belis, presently emeritus editor of the Journal, followed between 2000-2016 by Prof. Dan Dermengiu.

Year after year, the scientific standards of the Romanian Journal of Legal Medicine rose until 2007 when it become indexed in the ISI Thomson Reuters database. The Journal has been reorganized after 2016. A new editorial board is determined to work hard to keep the Journal on its ascending course, so it can continue to manifest itself prominently in the scientific and publishing world.

It is our intention that the RJLM should reflect all forensic and legal medicine specialties (forensic medicine and pathology, clinical legal medicine, forensic serology and genetics, forensic toxicology, forensic psychiatry, forensic anthropology, medical ethics, etc.) and topics such as autopsy and causes of death, causality, suicide, death in custody, torture, prejudice evaluation, child abuse and interpersonal violence, malpractice issues, bioethics, patient-doctor relationship issues, human rights, etc.

The peer-reviewed Romanian Journal of Legal Medicine is published quarterly by the Romanian Society of Legal Medicine as its official publication. The editing of RJLM is carried out with the assistance of a Board appointed by the Editor-in-chief. We value and honor our Professors, their experience and their legacy which we consider as our responsibility to pass enriched to the younger generations.

The Romanian Journal of Legal Medicine can be looked upon as a scientific symbol of our tradition, hopes and ideals for justice, scientific truth, protection of vulnerable persons and promoting the human rights.