Chapter 10 — Analysis of Trial-Monitoring Findings occurred, programmes will need to consider how much weight they attach to each source, and should probably seek additional sources. Moreover, the principle of impartiality136 requires monitors to consider all points of view and to establish as clearly as possible the extent to which different circumstances or actors may have contributed to a breach. For instance, if there is a general lack of proper reasoning behind verdicts, monitoring personnel should look not only at the responsibility of judges for this problem, but should also examine such issues as the clarity of legal requirements on providing sound reasoning of verdicts, the time allowed by law for judges to issue decisions, whether parties raise lack of reasoning as a ground for appeals, whether appellate and supreme courts overturn improperly reasoned verdicts, and whether higher courts’ decisions can be taken as good examples for lower courts. In this way, shortcomings are examined from different perspectives and monitoring programmes are shielded from being perceived as biased in favour of one actor or another. In determining whether a problematic practice is an isolated instance or a systemic challenge, a programme should have at its disposal adequate comparative data in terms of numbers of cases and/or their geographic distribution. If reports refer to an isolated breach or a problem that is infrequent, this would need to be mentioned. Apart from verifying the facts, monitoring programmes also need to ensure that the legal provisions or jurisprudence they apply in their analyses are relevant, authoritative and convincing. If different interpretations of a legal standard exist, and if the programme’s analysis is not based on the most prevalent one, it should be accompanied by a convincing explanation for choosing another opinion. In practice, ensuring the use of proper jurisprudence forms a substantial part of an analyst’s duties. 10.3 Identification of root causes and appropriate remedies Especially when the aim of trial monitoring is to foster justice-system reform, the programme should not rest at merely pointing to the symptoms observed, but should endeavour to identify the reasons that induced a breach of fair trial standards. In doing so, monitoring programmes can make informed recommendations on how to overcome challenges. Since monitors are usually those who observed a problem, they are in a unique position to give a first impression on its possible causes. Consequently, they should be encouraged to include in internal reports their opinion on the possible cause of a fair trial breach. For example, their assessment might be that the that the breach was due to the court’s compliance with a poorly drafted law, caused by contradictions in jurisprudence, resulted from ignorance of the law, was due to insufficient resources, or was caused by some other factor. This can provide legal analysts with an initial foundation upon which they can build their subsequent research. Legal analysts are best positioned to have a more comprehensive understanding of the possible root causes of a specific type of breach, since they have an overview of numerous cases and are aware of wider political developments, institutional shortcomings and challenges in capacity-building. Thus, together with programme managers, they are able to formulate recommendations as possible solutions to the problems identified by the programme. 10.4 Monitoring developments after identifying and making note of an issue Since monitoring programmes focus their attention on how the justice-system works, they should examine whether the system itself can identify any breaches of human rights and remedy them. For example, if a first-instance court does not pronounce its verdict publicly and the defence does not 136  See Chapter 8.1.2, “The duty of impartiality”. 89