76 Trial Monitoring: A Reference Manual for Practitioners with the methodology of the programme and will enable them to identify and address any systemic practices that may be problematic. After the general parameters of the programme for case selection are decided, it is essential to establish procedures that enable monitors to identify specific cases and proceedings to be observed. To this end, administrative regulations should be reviewed, since they may require court officials to provide hearing information. In many systems, administrative regulations or court rules explicitly require the public posting of hearing schedules. However, individual judges might wish to maintain control over their case schedules and there may be internal resistance to consolidation of scheduling information within the court. By raising such rules with the court president or registry official in connection with trial monitoring, programmes may provide the court with external support for better consolidation and greater openness in case scheduling. This can have an impact not only on improving case identification, but also on enhancing court practices related to the right to a public trial.107 Even when there are no barriers to court access, the process of identifying specific cases, based on pre-determined programme selection criteria, may be complex, for a variety of reasons. For example, cases may not be centrally tracked once assigned to a judge, hearings may not be announced, or case-tracking systems may be antiquated. Further, custody hearings and other proceedings can be held on short notice or rescheduled without notice. Moreover, within any host country’s legal system, individual courts may track cases differently, necessitating different arrangements for different courts. Given the significant differences in how individual courts operate, programme managers and monitors may have to make different types of arrangements to identify specific cases and obtain hearing dates and times. These arrangements can be made at the central, regional or local level and will depend on the programme’s organization and the responsiveness of local officials and actors. When possible, arrangements should be formalized by letter. They may, however, also be informal, if court clerks and officials are co-operative in providing regular information on the scheduling of cases in a particular court. Requests to court staff for the preparation of lists of specific cases, the faxing of schedules or other special arrangements may entail work beyond what is required by law or the officials’ professional responsibilities, and might place additional demands on court staff. Therefore, it is important for monitors to be flexible and meet court officials more than halfway. In sum, in identifying specific cases to be observed, monitoring staff should: • suggest to court presidents that a specific official at the court be designated to provide registry and hearing information to the monitor; • seek to establish a regular day and time for docket review with the prosecutor’s office and/or court registrar; • if distance is an issue, seek to arrange with the court registrar, prosecutor’s office or other officials to send notification of cases. In the OSCE programmes, this has included co-operation with officials who agree to fax lists of new cases with hearing schedules; and • resort to alternative sources of information. These include police reports, regular review of newspapers and other media, information-sharing arrangements with other international organizations or NGOs, complaints by interested actors to monitoring staff, or discussions with legal actors and the community. 107  For example, the LSMS in Kosovo reported repeatedly on deficiencies in making trial schedules available to the public. This prompted the competent authorities to issue additional administrative instructions and to achieve wider compliance in practice with the right to a public trial.