Judge Patrick Robinson, President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, gives the keynote speech at the Human Dimension Seminar on Strengthening the Rule of Law, Warsaw, 12 May. (OSCE/Piotr Markowski) 22 in guaranteeing the right to a fair trial, an issue that received a great deal of attention in the early 1990s in the wake of the transition of many countries to democratic systems. In the intervening years, reforms were undertaken across the OSCE region. ODIHR, in co-operation with the Heidelberg-based Max Planck Institute, has been studying these reforms in order to develop an analysis of needs as the basis for a new generation of ODIHR programmes addressing this issue. Effective Administration of Justice and Legal Remedies In 2009, ODIHR began developing its capacity to provide assistance to participating States with respect to the judicial resolution of election-related disputes. A review of the ODIHR manual Resolving Election Disputes in the OSCE Area (2000) is under way and will lead to the design of a rule of law programme to support judiciaries in resolving electoral disputes. Also, the 2009 Human Dimension Seminar, which was dedicated to strengthening the rule of law in the OSCE area, with a special focus on the effective administration of justice, stressed that governments should concentrate on the core function of administrative justice — the protection of individuals against potential abuses by administrations through the provision of effective remedies. Democratization Legislative Support ODIHR’s comprehensive approach to legislative reform has four main aspects. The first involves the review of individual pieces of draft legislation, usually during the course of political dialogue with the authorities of the relevant participating State. Whether performed by ODIHR’s in-house staff or by domestic or international experts, the purpose of these reviews is to provide prompt advice while legislation is being drafted, in order to strengthen local capacity for reform. This often involves the sharing of experiences and practices from other OSCE states that have dealt with similar issues. The second aspect is a direct result of ODIHR’s years of experience with legislative reviews. In looking closely at individual laws, it became clear that many legislative shortcomings had common underlying causes. To address these shortcomings in a systematic manner — ODIHR offers recommendations on how to improve the law-making system to make it more efficient and more transparent. The third aspect of ODIHR’s legislative support is employed less frequently but is no less important. When it becomes clear that legislators from a number of OSCE states need guidance on a particular issue, ODIHR develops and publishes guidelines in order to offer assistance to a wider audience. Taking into account best practices from across the OSCE region, these documents provide parameters for making laws that comply with OSCE commitments and other relevant international standards. ODIHR Annual Report 2009