One example of institutional reform is the removal of court officials involved in crimes of the fallen Tunisian regime. Under Ben Ali's rule, courts often facilitated corruption. The removal of implicated officials is a part of the government's efforts to reconcile this abuse. Trends and challenges States in times of transition to democracy, since the early 1980s, have been using a variety of transitional justice mechanisms as part of measures to account for the past and build a future democratic state. Mechanisms, such as trials, truth commissions, reparations, lustration, museums, and other memory sites have been employed either single-handedly or in a combined form to address past human rights violations. Diverse studies ranging from the decision-making process of a choice of strategy through to the implementation of the transitional justice policy and impacts on the transition and future stability of the society in question have been produced by scholars in recent years. One illuminating study in particular that has documented the dramatic new trend of transitional justice and democratization is by Kathryn Sikkink and Carrie Booth Walling (2006). In their research paper described as the "justice cascade", Sikkink and Walling conducting analysis of truth commissions and human rights trials occurring throughout the world from 1979 to 2004 revealed a significant increase in the judicialization of world politics both regionally and internationally. Of the 192 countries surveyed, 34 have used truth commissions, and 50 had at least one transitional human rights trial. More than two-thirds of the approximately 85 new and/or transitional countries during that period used either trials or truth commissions as a transitional justice mechanism; over half tried some form of judicial proceedings. Thus, the use of a truth commission and/or human rights trials among transitional countries is not an isolated or marginal practice, but a widespread social practice occurring in the bulk of transitional countries. Since its emergence, transitional justice has encountered numerous challenges such as identifying victims, deciding whether to punish superiors or middle agents, avoiding a "victor's justice", and finding adequate resources for compensation, trial, or institutional reform. Also, the transitional period may only result in a tenuous peace or fragile democracy. As has been noted in the discourse on transition to democracy, the dilemma has always been for new regimes to promote accountability for past abuses without risking a smooth transition to democracy. In addition, existing judicial system might be weak, corrupt, or ineffective and