[ Democratization ] Participants at an event co-organized with the OSCE Mission to Serbia on international standards of ethics and conduct for parliamentarians, Belgrade, 24 November 2011. (OSCE/Milan Obradovic) Independence of the Judiciary ODIHR’s Kyiv Recommendations on Judicial Independence continue to form the basis for country-specific discussions with decision makers, scholars and legal communities in the OSCE area, with the purpose of strengthening and safeguarding judicial independence. Published in 2010, the Recommendations have since been translated into Albanian, Armenian, Azeri, Bosnian, Georgian, Romanian, Russian and Ukrainian. The recommendations formed the basis for discussion at the expert meeting “The Kyiv Recommendations and Judicial Independence in Armenia”, held in the capital on 28 June and organized by ODIHR in co-operation with the OSCE Office in Yerevan. The roundtable, which was addressed by the Minister of Justice and drew together judicial policymakers and senior practitioners, focused on issues of special relevance in the context of ongoing judicial reform efforts in Armenia. On 20 April, ODIHR held a roundtable, in co-operation with the Kyrgyz Supreme Court and the OSCE Centre in Bishkek, on judicial independence in Kyrgyzstan. The event was timed to contribute to the discussion of draft laws on the judiciary that were later adopted by the parliament. One element of the new legislation was the creation of the Council of Judges, responsible for selecting new members for the bench. The Centre in Bishkek and ODIHR subsequently organized training on 3 and 4 November in Bishkek for members of the Council to share good practices and provide guidance on judicial selection procedures. On 14 November, in Chisinau, ODIHR and the OSCE Mission to Moldova brought together decision makers from the Superior Council of Magistrates, the Ministry of Justice and the Parliament, as well as other stakeholders in judicial reform, to discuss the selection of judges and the evaluation of their performance, as well as disciplinary offences and proceedings. These and other issues were discussed in the context of Moldova’s recently adopted “Strategy for Justice Sector Reform”. Trial Monitoring OSCE commitments recognize the value of trial observation as a confidence-building measure to promote adherence to the rule of law. ODIHR and OSCE field operations carry out trial-monitoring activities to gain first-hand information about fair-trial issues in individual cases and to obtain data about general trends in justice systems. In agreement with the Belarusian authorities, ODIHR observed 12 trials from March through July, involving 41 defendants, including five former candidates, all of whom had been charged with offences related to ODIHR Annual Report 2011 23