Chapter 11 — Internal Reporting Systems This template ensures that monitors devote their attention to 14 thematic issues relating to human rights standards on which the programme focuses, and also includes two sections (15 and 16) in which monitors can report on any human rights issues not covered in the detailed list. Allowing space in a template where monitors can raise additional issues at their discretion can be a means of encouraging initiative and extending observation skills. 11.4 Strategies to organize, simplify and systematize reporting The following sections illustrate strategies to make reporting more effective and less time-consuming. 11.4.1 Using instructions to ensure a clear reporting methodology Instructions for monitors on how to complete case reports are critical to ensuring consistency in reporting and to enhancing the programme’s capacity to manage and synthesize information. Without clear reporting guidelines, monitors may focus on disparate issues or bury relevant analysis among pages of extraneous facts and issues. Instructions may provide: • • • • an explanation or overview of the issue or issues to be reported; the sequence of the elements to be included in the analysis, e.g., facts first, legal standards second; the applicable international standards and domestic laws to be applied in analysis; and a list of relevant questions to help provide guidance in addressing the issue. While reporting instructions are similar to a checklist, in that they raise and help a monitor to identify issues to be monitored,146 instructions go further, in that they are linked directly to a particular reporting format or reporting template. This, in turn, helps ensure not only consistency in issue coverage, but also consistency in reporting methodology, in terms of how issues are reported and analyzed. Instructions are equally important for closed and open reporting systems. If a monitoring programme develops a manual for its operations, the manual should include a reporting template and instructions on how to use it. For example, the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina proceeded in this manner when it issued a revised version of its Trial-monitoring Manual in 2006. The following example illustrates how reporting guidelines can be incorporated directly into a reporting template. 147 Example of reporting instructions within a reporting template147 I. CASE INFORMATION This section introduces the reader to the particulars of the case and provides a framework around which the analysis of the hearing will be developed in the remainder of the report. It is essential to complete all information each time a new report is made. Note: Do not leave any entry blank. If there is no appropriate entry, indicate “none” or use the abbreviation “n/a” to assure the reader that the lack of an entry is intentional. Hearing date: (the date of the monitored hearing corresponding to this report) Type of hearing: (plea, trial, sentencing hearing, etc.) … 146  See Chapter 11.3.1, “Open reporting systems”. 147  For ease of reference, the basic report form is printed in black with the instructions on the form printed in blue. Due to space restrictions, the entire form with instructions has not been reproduced. 99