DEMOCRATIZATION  : :  25 Warsaw, 19 September 2018. Left to right: Azamat Shambilov, Regional Director for Central Asia at Penal Reform International (PRI); Nadia Stefaniv, Justice at the Supreme Court of Ukraine; Andrea Huber, Deputy Chief of the ODIHR Rule of Law Unit; and Jypara Rakisheva, National Co-ordinator of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Programme in Central Asia speak at an HDIM side event. (OSCE/Maria Kuchma) LEGISLATIVE ASSISTANCE In 2018, ODIHR received 20 new requests for legal reviews and published 19, including six prepared jointly with the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission. After the publication of an opinion, ODIHR engages with participating States to follow up on recommendations through a range of activities. In September 2018, the Office co-organized a roundtable on the Ukrainian draft law on public consultations, to assess the current status of the draft law and discuss the importance of public consultation. Follow up visits to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Poland and Uzbekistan took place over the year. ODIHR also carried out joint visits with the Venice Commission to Albania, Hungary, Romania and Ukraine in the run up to the adoption of joint opinions on legislation in these participating States. Improving lawmaking processes As the poor quality of legislation is often due to systemic flaws in the overall legislative process, ODIHR not only provides advice on specific laws, but also works “ We consider this ODIHR-EU seminar an important element of the implementation of the National Action Plan for Gender Equality in the Republic of Belarus and an integral part of our advanced training system for judges.” Vladimir Moroz, Deputy Director of the Institute for Re-training and Continuing Education of Judges and Personnel of Prosecutor’s Offices, Courts and Justice Institutions (IRCE) at the Belarusian State University