Meeting of Oct.16 and 17 in Paris
October 16th and 17th, 2009 were held in Paris in the room Clemenceau of the palace of Luxembourg, the First International Conference of Judicial Mediation organized by the GEMME (European Grouping of Magistrates for Mediation) with the support of the Ministry of Justice and Civil Liberties, and various organizations. The subject of this conference was “ Mediation, the universal language of conflict resolution”
This conference ended up with the creation of the « International Conference of Mediation for Justice» allowing people to continue sharing different experiences in mediation. Two judges Louise Otis from Quebec and Beatrice Brenneur, founder of GEMME have been by their enthousiasm at the origin of the great event.
About 350 participants from the five continents attended the extremely rich works. Some very important personnalities such as Ambassadors, Ministers of justice, Supreme-Court Magistrates honored with their presence this event that some have qualified as an historical happening. Because of the number of speakers (around forty people), people had a preference for an interactive exchange, conducted by journalists instead of theoretical presentation. This was made easy with the handing out of manuals to all participants.
Jacques Barrot, vice-president of the European Commission in charge of the Justice and the Internal Affairs, underlined the fact that the mediation is asserting itself more and more every day and that the supranational impulse given by the European Directive was going to contribute to its development in a decisive way. He claimed to be convinced that the mediation had not yet found all its own place in conflict resolutions systems.
The panorama of the mediation in Europe, animated by Pierre Rancé a judicial reviewer at Europe 1, was mainly based on the transposition of the European Directive of may 21st 2008 in countries such as Greece, Portugual and Spain. The example was also taken on innovative practices by distinguishing institutionalization of mediation in some countries like Netherlands, France, United Kingdom, from some individual practices as it is in Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy, Hungary, Switzerland. The Minister of Justice of Slovenie announced the promulgation of a law which would enforceable from 2010. This law would oblige judges to suggest the mediation in family and labor relations board affairs. The magistrate’s training school put emphasis on the importance of the sensitization of the young generations to the mediation.
Peter Humi, CNN correspondant in Paris, conducted the discussion on mediation in America. It was an exchange between representatives of Canada, United States, Brazil and Argentina. Some countries have a hybrid and integrated system in their judicial system, and that’s the case of Quebec. Others, as Florida have a combination of public mediators, paid by the state and private mediators. The federal character of these big countries with an important ethnic variety has facilitated this ‘additionnal service’ with regards to the classic judicial procedure.
The discussion about the mediation in Asia-Pacific, animated by Francette Rosamont, Director of publication of Inter-enterprises, a review West Indian, pointed out a big variety of approaches: so in Australia, more precisely in the state of Victoria, mediation has been introduced into the trial strickly speaking. In China one can observe the coming back to the former tradition of Confucius which main argument is to consider human beings as being the supreme value. The infra judicial conciliation exists in Japan for more than a century, and Bangladesh experiences traditional resolution of conflicts.
Debates on mediation in Africa and in the middle east directed by Francette Rosamont highlighted the interconnections between the traditional system and the modern system. In those countries mediation is being build with consideration to what was created by the modern justice and without rejecting the traditional way of resolving conflicts. In Togo, it’s a dishonour to go to court. In Senegal as in Gabon the coexistence between the traditional and the occidental right, is a success thanks to a round trips between those two systems. In Morocco and in Algeria, mediation is based on ancestral traditions and seems to be very well anchored. Mediation and conciliation have recently been inculded in the civil and administrative procedure in Algeria. In Lebanon, this country that counts around 18 ethnic communities, people call upon “wise men specialized in reconciliation” with a project of law on judiciary mediation submitted in June 2009.
The subject of the International mediations, commercial mediation, and familiy mediation was discussed on the second day and directed by Laurence Neuer, a journalist from the Newspaper: Le Point. The choice of the language in which the mediation is going to be held, seems to be very important. Co-mediation meanning mediation handled by two people (partners) is also very efficient. We should know that mediation allows us to come to a consensus and flexible solution meanwhile the juridical system sometimes does not correspond to the situation. By the way some rules have been established to put a universal frame of the international mediation.
.
According to the great development of the new technologies, new methods have been pointed out like the concept of e-mediation that’s going to be a part of the e-justice in europ which is going to be inaugured on the 15th december 2009 in Stockholm; mediation by telephone or by internet allows to solve conflicts that deals with internet issues according to the 12,000 cases that have been handled in France for the past 5 years by the forum of rights on internet. Similarly, the e-leaning by Internet, allows the trainning of people that are far from each others and assures a considerable saving of time.
Finally, two interventions were made on the economic advantage of mediation. It has been noticed that the mediation is financially justified by the low cost and the low psychological pressure that comes along with it. For companies, it’s important for partners to keep a good relationship in business, because it’s more costly to get a new customer than to keep one. Mediation brings also the confidence that is necessary to solve effectively conflicts. There will not be any involvement of people into mediation without a legitimization of the mediator and his recognition as a qualified and recognized professional.
What we can remember from those two intensive days, is that there was a great communion that brought participants together, because mediation bypasses borders and cultures. What strikes, at the same time, is an extreme variety of experiences and the absence of major differences. For sure, the vocation of mediation is not to supplant the judicial institution, but it’s development results on one hand from the civil society that has creative projects and on another hand, the initiatives of judges in the institutionalization of the mediation. According to one of the participants, “mediation is a state of mind that transforms what is hopeless into hope”.
Previous 