ANNUAL REPORT 2003 Elections lation. In 2003, the ODIHR continued to provide assistance to participating States in meeting their electoral commitments through the Electoral Legislation Alert and Assistance Program, which provides expert advice on electoral law reform on the basis of a voluntary fund established for this purpose. This fund provides the ODIHR with the flexibility necessary to quickly respond to requests to support reform of election-related legislation. In 2003, the ODIHR published the following assessments related to electoral legislation:
Final Assessment of the Electoral Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan (jointly with the Venice Commission);
Assessment of Draft Amendments to the Election Experts from the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and from the Council of Europe examine preparations for the 23 March referendum in a polling station in Grozny, Chechnya, during an assessment visit on 3 March. Law of the Republic of Tajikistan;
Preliminary Assessment of Draft Amended Election Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan;
Review of Parliamentary Election Law of Croatia;
Assessment of Pending Amendments to the Throughout the year, the ODIHR was involved in intensive dialogue with the Central Election Commission of Kaza- Electoral Code of the Kyrgyz Republic;
khstan concerning review of draft amendments to the Elec- Recommendations on the Electoral Law and the tion Code. This resulted in some of the ODIHR’s recommen- Electoral Administration of the Republic of dations being taken into account, although other significant Armenia (jointly with the Venice Commission); recommendations were not addressed. In Kyrgyzstan, the
Review of Laws for Elections to Legislative Bodies ODIHR recommended that a number of changes be made to to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales;
proposed amendments to the Election Code. When adopt- Comments on a consultation paper by the United ed, however, the amendments compounded the original Kingdom Electoral Commission on the Cycle of problems and resulted in an Election Code that is even fur- Local Elections in England. ther from meeting OSCE commitments. In Tajikistan, the ODIHR took part in a conference organized by the Tajik par- In 2003, the ODIHR intensified its efforts to promote elec- liament that identified changes to the country’s electoral toral reform, building upon a growing body of electoral law legislation that need to be acted upon in advance of the reviews conducted during the past five years. Through as- parliamentary elections in 2005. sisting participating States to bring their legal frameworks into line with OSCE commitments for democratic elections, In Albania, the ODIHR provided technical assistance to a bi- the ODIHR has been able to ensure an improved legal partisan parliamentary committee established in 2002 to framework in some participating States. Electoral legislation discuss improvements to the electoral framework. Signifi- that does not fully comply with OSCE commitments is not cantly, after meeting for a year, the committee agreed to a conducive to the conduct of democratic elections, and the series of reform measures by consensus, addressing most of ODIHR cannot guarantee that a sufficient number of its rec- the recommendations of the ODIHR final report on the 2001 ommendations are always taken into account. parliamentary elections. This included a number of changes 11