The 2016 Venice Commission and ODIHR Joint Guidelines for Preventing and Responding to the Misuse of Administrative Resources during Electoral Processes outline essential principles for preventing and responding to such misuse and preventing public authorities from taking unfair advantage of their positions, including by holding official public events for electoral campaigning purposes. These Joint Guidelines highlight the importance of a stable, accessible and foreseeable legal framework, as well as its implementation and enforcement practices; ensuring wide political freedoms in election campaigns to all, including wide access to the media; impartiality and professionalism of civil servants in election campaigns, as well as their neutrality, primarily reflected in the prohibition of civil servants from campaigning in an official capacity as candidates or supporters and the prevention of conflicts of interests, impartial and balanced coverage of all election-related events in the media; as well as transparency and equality of opportunity in the realisation of the passive election right and in the equitable access to public resources.