reduced personal liability of board members, it is not an obligation for defenders acting in association with one another to have their association registered as such in order to be recognized as a legal person. Sweden: Example of Regulations for NGO Registration118 According to Sweden’ s Constitution, every citizen is guaranteed freedom of association, which means the freedom to associate with others for public or private purposes. Both NGOs with legal personality and more informal groups can be formed freely without any type of prior registration. Registration is only required for associations that are formed with the purpose of pursuing the economic interests of their members through economic activities. Non-profit organizations can be formed freely and can acquire legal personality freely without registration. Using simple (re-)registration procedures Defenders may register their activities with governmental bodies in order to obtain certain advantages conferred by national law on entities with registered status. Human rights NGOs often have limited staff available and funding may be scarce. Thus, devoting time and energy to (re-)registration may divert limited resources from their core activities. This means that, where states do require registration, e.g., to obtain legal personality, the procedure should be simple and inexpensive. Estonia: Example of a Simple Registration Procedure for NGOs119 In order to register a non-profit association, the association’ s management board has to submit a petition that is signed by all members of the board. The association’ s charter, notarized sample signatures of the members of the management board, contact numbers (telephone, fax, etc.), and other documents required by law must be appended to the petition. Since the work of defenders may involve criticism of the government, this may lead to difficulties re-registering, if required. In many OSCE participating States, no reregistration is required, e.g., Slovakia,120 Poland,121 and Estonia.122 Making reasoned decisions on (re-)registration If the relevant authority decides not to register an NGO, this decision should be made in accordance with international human rights law. In particular, it should be based on clearly stated reasons, allowing the NGO to understand why the decision was reached, as required by OSCE commitments.123 In the past, defenders have been faced with decisions based on vague statements such as “ in accordance with law” or “ on the basis of public order” , which are clearly insufficient in this regard, and may be seen as 118 Sweden’ s response to ODIHR’ s questionnaire, 9 June 2008. Estonia’ s response to ODIHR’ s questionnaire, 16 May 2008. 120 Information provided by Slovakia’ s public defender of rights. 121 Poland’ s response to ODIHR’ s questionnaire, 2 June 2008. 122 Estonia’ s response to ODIHR’ s questionnaire, 16 May 2008. 123 Vienna 1989, op. cit., note 23, para. 13.9: “ [Participating States will] ensure that effective remedies as well as full information about them are available to those who claim that their human rights and fundamental freedoms have been violated … . [They] will, inter alia, effectively apply the following remedies: … the right of the individual to appeal to executive, legislative, judicial or administrative organs; … the right to be promptly and officially informed of the decision taken on any appeal, including the legal grounds on which this decision was based. This information will be provided as a rule in writing and, in any event, in a way that will enable the individual to make effective use of further available remedies.” 119 28