42 Gender and Security Toolkit In Bangladesh, efforts to promote more gender-inclusive and responsive community justice mechanisms (shalish) to improve outcomes for women highlight the long-term, multipronged approach required. While women’s access to and influence within shalish remain somewhat restricted, progress has been made through the long-term engagement of civil society actors alongside institutional and legal reform, for instance to require that a woman is present for cases involving women or children. Civil society actors, notably the social mobilization NGO Nagorik Uddyog, have worked for decades to build women’s leadership through training and creating networks, and facilitate alternative NGO shalish in which these women leaders mediate. This has been instrumental to women’s participation in shalish.25 4.13 Strengthening gender-responsive internal and external oversight of the justice sector To enhance accountability and help ensure the justice sector promotes gender equality and non-discrimination, robust gender-responsive oversight mechanisms need to be in place. These should include internal oversight mechanisms (such as monitoring and disciplinary and complaints mechanisms within the justice sector) and external oversight mechanisms (through parliamentary committees, civil society actors, the media, ombuds offices and other stakeholders). Internal oversight Internally, robust and effective disciplinary policies and procedures (including a code of conduct for both judges and lawyers) need to be in place and contain provisions which prohibit discrimination or harassment on the basis of sex, sexual orientation or gender identity. There should be trusted processes by which to challenge and repress sexist practices among the legal profession and judges. Such processes may include complaint mechanisms through regulatory bodies such as judicial commissions, law societies and bar associations. Members of the judiciary and legal practitioners need to be subject to mandatory training on these codes of conduct and how to adhere to them. Professional membership bodies (e.g. law societies and bar associations) can ensure that lawyers comply with their obligations to undergo continuous professional development (i.e. training) and understand their professional conduct obligations (including ethics). In addition, there needs to be an independent authority which regulates the conduct of judges and lawyers and handles complaints made against them. This might be a separate commission, such as a legal services commission; the type and specific name of the regulatory authority vary between countries and legal systems. Complaints mechanisms should be accessible to women and men of all sexual orientations and gender identities and expressions, and the handling of complaints and investigations should be responsive to their specific needs. This can be facilitated by policies and protocols developed through consultation with these groups. Complaints against judges are dealt with differently from complaints against lawyers, and in many legal systems are rare. Complaints against judges can be made on the grounds of judicial bias: if a party to a court case has a reasonable suspicion of bias, it may be grounds for judicial review or appeal to a higher court. Oversight of judges is thus not carried out by an external authority, but generally by higher courts in the legal system. In some legal systems judges have membership bodies which can provide guidance but do not have any disciplinary authority. A ministry or department of justice, or similar governmental agency, is responsible for overseeing the administration of justice. As such, it plays a role in overseeing the courts – but is constrained by principles of judicial independence.