The authors are arguing that it should at least be sent out for review—not necessarily published.
It is important that we call on such publications and demand an explanation. If you or your organization is a paying subscriber, then demand to know their policy on this matter and let them know what you think. Otherwise they have no accountability.
Because the journal already made that decision, and that is their right.
> Then they have an obligation to at least facilitate peer-review
Reviewers work for free and are an extremely scarce commodity. Review of a work like this is effectively expending tens of thousands of dollars of people's time. It isn't something we can just indulge in for the fun of it.
Besides that, you might not appreciate exactly how much chaos would break out and how much it would undermine the academic publishing system if any paper rejected had to be reviewed just because the submitter demanded it. The system simply wouldn't work at all.
There are a lot of journals in the world and if the author's work is good, they should be able to get a different journal to publish it.