DEMOCRATIZATION Maripa Seydalieva from the Ministry of Justice of Kyrgyzstan (l) and Muhtar Bakhautdinov, a defence attorney (r), listen as Gulniza Kozhomova of the Bar Association of Kyrgyzstan (c) speaks at an ODIHR-organized regional roundtable on effective models of legal aid provision in criminal proceedings, Bishkek, 15 May 2013. (OSCE/Vladislav Ushakov) judicial reforms it had organized in December 2011 in Kyiv. In December 2013, ODIHR prepared a legal opinion on draft amendments to Kazakhstan’s Law on the Judicial System and Status of Judges, thereby continuing its legislative support for the country’s judicial reform efforts. Trial Monitoring ODIHR and OSCE field operations conduct trial monitoring in OSCE participating States to assess the functioning of judiciaries and their compliance with OSCE commitments in the area of rule of law and due process. OSCE trial-monitoring findings have contributed to judicial reform processes ongoing in many participating States. In 2013, ODIHR promoted its trial-monitoring tools, Trial Monitoring: A Reference Manual for Practitioners and the Legal Digest of International Fair Trial Rights, through two training events on 19 and 20 February and on 25 and 26 November in Vilnius. Civil society representatives from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Russia and Ukraine participated. ODIHR made efforts to ensure a fair gender balance among both beneficiaries and trainers, and the impact of trial monitoring on gender-based violence was included in the training curriculum. At the request of the Georgian authorities, ODIHR began monitoring the trials of a number of high-ranking individuals from the former Georgian government charged under the Law of Georgia on Conflict of Interest and Corruption in the Public Service. The monitoring, which started on 20 February, follows ODIHR’s established trial-monitoring methodology. ODIHR’s Annual Trial Monitoring Meeting on 7 and 8 October in Warsaw brought together 40 participants, including from OSCE field operations and national and international NGOs working on trial monitoring. Participants exchanged experience and discussed challenges related to different trial-monitoring methodologies based on their organizations’ mandate and objectives. As a result and with a view to organizing a civil society platform in 2014, ODIHR ODIHR Annual Report 2013  /   25