Guidelines for Understanding, Adjudicating, and Resolving Disputes in Elections While the impartiality of arbiters in the adjudication of electoral complaints is of crucial importance, exceptional circumstances require flexibility and pragmatic approaches in the implementation of international standards within a particular system. iii. Remuneration, full-time, and permanent Other factors can affect the establishment of an impartial electoral complaints mechanism, including remuneration levels, whether the position is full or part-time, and whether it is a permanent or temporary body. In a well-resourced electoral management body, judges or arbiters would ideally be prohibited from exercising other functions and would hold full-time positions in order to best maintain an independent and impartial adjudication system. In practice, however, judges who serve as electoral arbiters are often sitting judges operating in their regular capacity — perhaps under special administrative procedures, or temporarily assigned to perform an electoral function, or even retired judges brought in temporarily. Few countries have full-time, permanent election tribunals. Thus, while the well-resourced model stated above may not exist in practice, the importance of creating a body of arbiters that are at least well-versed in election law and electoral complaint adjudication is clear. Remuneration, not commonly discussed or adequately addressed by international development assistance programs, is also an important element in the impartiality and independence of a judicial organ. Sufficient remuneration for electoral judges will help to prevent external, potentially corruptive financial pressure on judges or arbiters.123 Certainly, when the culture of bribes is embedded in a country, an increase in remuneration may not eliminate corruption entirely. However, salaries and benefits may affect the attitude of employees and also attract the most qualified applicants. Designing a fair adjudicative system also requires a determination as to whether to make electoral complaints tribunals and commissions per- 123 USAId GuIdance, supra note 121, at 52, 62 (noting that “[l]ow levels of remuneration usually attract attention as the main source of corrupt behavior” and that “[a] number of efforts have been made to minimize corruption among judges,” including “the most often voiced suggestion . . . to increase judicial salaries”); Central Council of the International Association of Judges , Universal Charter of the Judge, art. 13 (Nov. 17, 1999) (“The judge must receive sufficient remuneration to secure true economic independence.”). 44