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This edition of the Commonwealth Cyber Journal brings to the forefront key issues that demand our collective attention and action. We are proud to present articles offering insights and practical approaches to protecting critical information infrastructure, an area of growing concern as essential services and national assets increasingly rely on interconnected systems. Lessons shared in this edition highlight the vulnerabilities of member countries and the innovative strategies being deployed to secure these vital sectors. As digital platforms become arenas for harassment, coercion, and harm, the need for a coordinated response rooted in human rights and gender-sensitive approaches becomes more paramount. The contributions in this issue challenge us to consider how cyber policies practices and guidelines may better protect the most vulnerable among us.

This report provides a summary of the findings and recommendations contained in the five regional reports Addressing the Role of Bystanders on Online Violence Against Women and Girls in the Commonwealth produced by the Secretariat in 2023.
The report presents the root causes and impacts of cyberviolence as being gender based, with a disproportionate impact on females where there is intersectionality of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, poverty, disability and other socioeconomic factors.

The Handbook on Designing and Implementing RIA Systems is intended to assist Commonwealth governments in designing and implementing programmes of Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) across multiple regulatory institutions. It identifies major risk factors that have led to failure of RIA programmes in other countries and suggests options that countries should consider to reduce the risks of failure. It is impossible to reduce risks to zero, but this Handbook will help increase the probability that RIA programmes will, in the end, improve the quality of government policies.

The purpose of A Commonwealth Guide to Case Management is to provide principled and practical guidance to the judiciary and to responsible policy-makers on justice modernisation and case management.

The objective of this Guide is to inform forward-looking best practices through a comparative analysis of member countries and to soberly align efficiency with the enduring constitutional values underlying the administration of justice.

Without a doubt, nimble, well-designed case management systems, alongside transformative technology, not only facilitate and support effective court proceedings, but also allow for the modernisation of justice.

The security and integrity of computer systems, digital data and networks have grown to be major concerns for states, organisations and people as a result of the development of the information society. Such concerns arise from the fact that malicious acts, such as ransomware, which target computer systems and their networks, have the potential to cause harm to individuals, countries and the global economy. Accordingly, many states and intergovernmental organisations across the world have taken steps to establish legal measures to criminalise and deter malicious acts that affect the integrity, confidentiality, availability and security of digital data and computer systems.