4.4 Staffing monitors 4.4.1 Size of monitoring team The number of monitors required by a programme should be determined by the focus and methodology of the programme and the programme objectives. For instance, the aims of a given programme might require staffing monitors in representative courts or jurisdictions throughout the host state, staffing monitors to cover an anticipated number of priority cases, or engaging a surplus of monitors for the purpose of training and capacity-building. The number of cases to be monitored is also of primary concern in determining how many monitors are required in any given programme. In practice, the size of a monitoring team may also be driven by budgetary considerations, as well as by the availability of qualified candidates. In the OSCE, programmes have been organized with a wide variance in relation to the number of monitors. For example, the Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina has operated with 25 full-time monitors; the LSMS in the Mission in Kosovo with six fulltime criminal-case monitors; and the Mission to Croatia with 20 Rule of Law staff monitoring war-crimes trials as a departmental priority but with other obligations. Likewise, project programmes have also differed in size, ranging from eight monitors in the Tajikistan programme to 22 monitors for the programme in Moldova. A final consideration is whether a programme establishes single monitors or monitoring teams or pairs. A number of OSCE field operations, including those in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Tajikistan, pair monitors, so that two monitors work as a team observing cases and writing the report. While pairing monitors will naturally decrease the monitoring capacity of the team, it may provide other operational benefits (see Chapter 7.5.4, “Monitor-pairing”). 4.4.2 Recruitment Trial-monitoring is an activity that involves assessing the work of a professional and often experienced judiciary. In recruiting monitoring staff, both individual qualifications and the perception of domestic actors must be taken into account. Experience dictates that, for programmes seeking to engage as a serious partner in a judicial reform process, programmes should preferably seek monitors that have attained a full legal degree. Such experience provides monitors with the requisite background to engage in legal reporting, as well as provides the necessary level of competence from the perspective of the local judiciary. However, it is not a necessity that monitors have significant practical prior legal experience. In fact, lack of practical experience in the system has sometimes been demonstrated to be advantageous, especially where reforms have radically changed the functioning of the legal system. In the past, a number of programmes, such as those run in the OSCE field operations in Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kazakhstan, have found that newly admitted lawyers are well placed to monitor new reforms and absorb new concepts and principles, including fair-trial standards. Conversely, programmes have experienced problems in hiring law students, given competing priorities with regard to time and wavering levels of interest. Also, while it is true that exceptional individuals without a formal legal background may be 50 Trial-Monitoring: A Reference Manual for Practitioners