Democratization A training session for legal support staff in Belgrade on 22 November, conducted as part of the War Crimes Justice Project. (OSCE/Curtis Budden) society, and officials are accountable to the public. Understanding the links and inter-dependence between democracy and the rule of law, ODIHR focuses through its programmatic activities on processes in participating States vital to maintaining these values in practice, from democratic law-making to the independent and impartial administration of justice. This work is carried out in partnerships with parliaments, political parties, judiciaries, government agencies, legal communities, international organizations and civil society actors. Independence of the Judiciary An independent judiciary is one of the key institutions for maintaining the rule of law. The challenges faced in strengthening judicial independence were at the forefront of the discussion at the 2010 Human Dimension Seminar, held in Warsaw from 17 to 19 May. Its participants called on the participating States and OSCE to increase efforts in this area. In 2010, ODIHR convened an international expert seminar on judicial independence in Kyiv, from 23 to 25 June, bringing together nearly 40 experts from 19 participating States to identify the main challenges and offer solutions for improving judicial independence in Eastern 22 ODIHR Annual Report 2010 Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia. The resulting “Kyiv Recommendations on Judicial Independence” comprise a set of concrete policy suggestions that formed the basis for country-specific discussions with decision makers, analysts and legal communities in Chisinau on 27 and 28 October and in Moscow on 14 December. In Moldova, the meeting produced input for the legislative-reform initiatives led by the Superior Council of Magistrates. Trial Monitoring OSCE commitments identify the value of fair trials in building confidence in democratic systems. ODIHR and OSCE field operations monitor trials to receive first-hand information about fair-trial issues in individual cases and to obtain data about general trends in justice systems. In 2010, ODIHR launched a project to support OSCE trial-monitoring activities through the development of an information- and knowledge-management system and legal database. The repository of documents, digest of fair-trial standards and methodological guidelines created will facilitate better informed and more reliable trial-monitoring operations. The project is steered by a board composed of ODIHR and OSCE field operations staff. The board