A/HRC/27/43 III. Promoting the rule of law 22. The OHCHR Rule of Law Programme in the country is aimed at supporting the legal and judicial reform process. The Programme works with a range of actors involved in the criminal justice system, mainly the Ministry of Justice, judges and prosecutors at all levels of the court system, lawyers and judicial police officers. The level of cooperation with the Ministry of Justice, and consequently with judges and prosecutors, has remained generally good, with many activities co-organized with the Ministry. 23. During the reporting period, OHCHR assumed the role of facilitator of the development partners of the Technical Working Group on legal and judicial reform. In this role, OHCHR works directly with the Ministry of Justice, which has responsibility within the Government for this sector. Technical working groups are the mechanisms for coordinating government-development partners in Cambodia and are organized along sectoral lines. In its role as development partners’ coordinator, OHCHR organized regular meetings of the group and coordinated inputs to the Government. In particular, OHCHR coordinated and submitted comments on the draft National Strategic Development Plan, 2014–2018. Some of the comments were integrated in subsequent versions of the plan. OHCHR took the lead in proposing new joint monitoring indicators to the Government, which remain to be jointly agreed. Following an 18-month period during which no meeting of the Technical Working Group on legal and judicial reform was convened between the Government and its development partners, the Ministry of Justice agreed to meet with development partners in March 2014, in a meeting co-chaired by OHCHR. 24. After the July 2013 elections, it was announced the three fundamental laws on the judiciary would be adopted within the first six months of the new legislature. The draft laws had been pending for many years. They were finalized by the Ministry of Justice, sent to the Council of Ministers for approval and then to the National Assembly for adoption, without being shared publicly. Unable to review the latest official version of the draft law on the organization of courts, OHCHR submitted some general comments to the Ministry of Justice in February 2014, some of which were integrated in a subsequent version. When the texts of the three draft laws were finally shared by the National Assembly with OHCHR one day before they were approved, OHCHR submitted further comments on them to the Assembly. Despite repeated requests from development partners, including OHCHR, and civil society, the drafts were not publicly released and consultations with relevant stakeholders were not organized. 25. OHCHR continued to advocate for the implementation of the Code of Criminal Procedure in accordance with international and national human rights standards. In particular, OHCHR worked closely with the Ministry of Justice to reform the pretrial detention process in order to introduce a requirement for legal reasoning in all judicial decisions ordering pretrial detention. The Minister of Justice approved a new court form that had been developed by senior judges, a process facilitated by OHCHR drawing on best practices from the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. The new form was sent to all courts in January 2014. The Ministry of Justice and the Bar Association, with support from OHCHR, disseminated it during a national conference on pretrial detention in March 2014. Judges, prosecutors and lawyers from all provinces attended the conference, which was opened by the Minister of Justice. In order to advocate for and explain the form to local judges, prosecutors and lawyers, OHCHR and the Ministry of Justice organized a series of judicial round tables in the provinces as in previous years. The judicial round tables allowed practitioners from the Extraordinary Chambers to share their experiences with colleagues from 13 (of 24) provinces. The meetings also allowed the Ministry of Justice to collect suggestions from judicial and legal practitioners on possible amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure. 7