Chapter 8 — Conduct and Capacity-Building of Trial-Monitoring Staff 8.2 Monitoring instructions The purpose of monitoring instructions is to provide guidance to monitors and other staff on how to carry out basic job responsibilities. Instructions help ensure adherence to common standards, thereby enhancing the consistency of monitoring methodology, and establish a basis for accountability. Monitoring instructions may be broken down into areas covering the different aspects of trial-monitoring operations. It is best that they be in writing, in the form of guidelines or internal policy papers, for example. 87 Many of these areas are covered more extensively throughout the manual. This subchapter serves as a reminder for managers of basic areas on which guidelines or instructions should be provided. These are as follows: • Case-identification methodology and case-selection criteria. These instructions clarify who is responsible for identifying cases and how to select from among different cases, including identifying priority cases by type of crime or relevant provision of the criminal code, the age of the perpetrator or victim, or other criteria. 88 • Case-monitoring methodology. These instructions relate to procedures on securing access to hearings, 89 guidelines on how to monitor90 and to procedures related to documents, closed hearings and interviews.91 • Reporting methodology. These instructions provide guidance on the focus and content of reporting, as well as on how to complete reporting forms.92 • Advocacy methodology. Such guidelines assist monitoring staff in becoming acquainted with advocacy aims and techniques and knowing the methodology and the limitations that a programme places on the advocacy role of team members at different levels.93 • Other instructions, policies, and responsibilities. These may include guidelines on the protocol for information-sharing,94 security95 or other responsibilities. Some programmes have specified further monitoring responsibilities, including minimum obligations, to achieve monitor accountability. Defining minimum obligations may be especially helpful in project-model programmes, where monitoring is a contracted activity rather than the responsibility of full-time staff. The following box provides a sample of the minimum monitoring obligations in the Moldova programme. 87  As an example, Annex I. B. “Guidelines for Trial Monitors”, contains the “Instructions to and Responsibilities of Monitors” prepared for the OSCE Mission to Moldova’s Trial Monitoring Programme. 88  See Chapter 9.1 for further details on identifying cases. 89  See Chapter 4.3, “Access to the courtroom and hearings in individual cases” and Chapter 4.6, “Access to investigations and pre-trial proceedings and materials”. 90  See Chapter 9.2, “Trial observation in courtrooms”. 91 See Chapter 4.5, “Access to closed hearings”, Chapter 4.4, “Access to documents” and Chapter 9.3. “Interviews with justice actors and stakeholders”. 92 See Chapter 11, “Internal reporting system”. 93 See Chapter 12.4, “Supporting other advocacy and capacity-building activities”. 94 See Chapter 12.3, “Confidential and semi-public reporting”. 95  See Chapters Chapter 8.5.6 and Chapter 8.5.7. 67