[ Democratization ] Alexandru Tanase, a judge at the Constitutional Court of Moldova and former Minister of Justice, delivers the keynote speech at the opening of the OSCE Human Dimension Seminar on the Role of Political Parties in the Political Process, Warsaw, 18 May 2011. (OSCE/Piotr Markowski) “Standards of Ethics/Conduct for Parliamentarians” conference brought together MPs and parliamentary staff from several OSCE participating States, as well as experts, civil society representatives and OSCE Parliamentary Assembly officials. This experience led to the development of an ODIHR project to study different practices of parliamentary ethics and conduct regulation in the OSCE region. The OSCE has built up a wealth of experience and know-how in implementing parliamentary-support projects, and ODIHR is uniquely situated to collect and share this experience. The Office, therefore, has promoted special practice- and experience-sharing structures, such as an online discussion group hosted on the parliamentary development expert portal Agora (www.agora-parl.org), a joint project of a number of international organizations. In 2011, ODIHR also organized and contributed to regular meetings of OSCE programmes working on parliamentary strengthening, including through a side event during the Human Dimension Seminar on “The Role of Political Parties in the Political Process”, held in Warsaw from 18 to 20 May. In another example of productive co-operation with field operations, ODIHR assisted the OSCE Mission in Kosovo during a workshop in November for parliamentarians and parliamentary staff by presenting an 34 ODIHR Annual Report 2011 overview of how parliamentary human rights committees function in a number of OSCE participating States. Ensuring Pluralistic Political Party Systems Political parties are a critical means by which citizens participate in their government, and a political-party system that offers real choice and works with fair rules can help to ensure that citizens are represented, policy debates are vibrant and democratic renewal takes place. Parties also often serve as bridges between the executive and legislative branches of government and help to effectively prioritize the legislative agenda within a system of government. The Human Dimension Seminar on “The Role of Political Parties in the Political Process”, mentioned above, was an important part of the Office’s efforts in this area in 2011, gathering more than 230 participants from 41 OSCE participating States and Mediterranean Partner countries to discuss the role of political parties in democracy and develop detailed recommendations. ODIHR’s support of efforts to establish a legal and regulatory framework that can guarantee the basic conditions in which multi-party systems can thrive is based on OSCE commitments and the principles expressed in the Guidelines on Political Party Regulation, published by ODIHR and the Council of Europe’s Venice