DEMOCRATIZATION ACTIVITIES ODIHR’s democratization activities can be divided into three basic areas: • Rule of law and legal reform; • Democratic governance and gender; and • Migration and freedom of movement. Rule of Law and Legal Reform ODIHR offers legislative assistance to OSCE participating States’ legislative reform efforts in line with international human rights standards and OSCE commitments, and supports regulatory reform activities of states to ensure that legislation is drafted and adopted in line with key OSCE commitments on transparency and inclusiveness in the law-making process. In the field of rule of law and legal reform, ODIHR offers legal expertise and facilitates the exchange of good practices. It provides expert opinions on legislation pertaining to human dimension fields, conducts expert meetings, monitors projects, organizes training workshops and develops policy guidelines and recommendations. The Office also provides expertise to debates about legal reform in participating States to ensure these discussions are inclusive and participatory. ODIHR partners with government agencies, parliaments, judiciaries, political parties, legal communities, international organizations, academia and civil society in these activities. NGO representatives participating in training by ODIHR on trialmonitoring techniques and fair trial rights in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, 6 March. OSCE/Arsen Ambaryan 26 ODIHR Annual Report 2014 Independence of the Judiciary Assisting participating States in strengthening judicial independence continued to be a focus of ODIHR’s rule of law work in 2014. Along with OSCE commitments and international standards on the independence of judges, the Kyiv Recommendations on Judicial Independence form the basis for country-specific discussions with decision makers, academics and legal communities in the OSCE area. Building on conclusions from such discussions, ODIHR offers assistance to participating States in relation to the independence and accountability of judges. In 2014, ODIHR conducted an expert assessment of the performance evaluation system of judges in Moldova, and presented the findings and recommendations at a roundtable with judicial stakeholders in Chisinau on 27 June. ODIHR’s assistance to the Moldovan authorities was instrumental to the introduction of a performance evaluation system for judges, with an emphasis on the development of professional skills within the judiciary rather than disciplinary responses to identified shortcomings in judicial performance. ODIHR contributed expertise on the principle of judicial independence and practical implications, in line with the Kyiv Recommendations on Judicial Independence, at roundtables organized by the ­Supreme Court of Kazakhstan, on 15 May in ­Astana, and by the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan, on 18 September in Tashkent, in support of ongoing reform processes on strengthening the performance and independence of the judiciaries in these participating States. Haykuhi Harutyunyan, President of Protection of Rights Without Borders (PRWB), at ODIHR’s Annual Trial Monitoring Meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia, 27 November. OSCE/Danielle Johnson