The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Courting success always through mediation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 04, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Courting success always through mediation

B.S. Ramesh

He has the panacea for the country's overburdened judicial system

BANGALORE: He has been described as a crusader in the field of mediation. Several legal luminaries in the country and abroad praise him for his commitment towards alternative dispute resolution.

Stephen A. Mayo, known to have piloted the mechanism of mediation in 17 countries, including Bangladesh, was in Bangalore on Saturday to attend the valedictory of the training for the second batch of mediator trainees.

Taking time off his busy schedule, Mr. Mayo who is also Director of the ISDLS, San Francisco, U.S., spoke to The Hindu on the High Court premises, along with senior judges V. Gopal Gowda and N. Kumar.

soon after the function.

Mr. Mayo said mediation could very well turn out to be the panacea for India's overburdened judicial system which he says is reporting 29 million to 30 million case arrears in trial stage alone.

Labelling the Bangalore model of mediation as one of the best of its kind, he says it has been conceived on the wealth of experience, success and failure gleaned from countries that have implemented the system.

Mediation would succeed in India as the courts here, including the Supreme Court and several High Courts, had given their full backing to it.

Mediation as an alternative dispute process, he says, received a shot in the arm after Parliament enacted a legislation to eliminate the backlog of cases in 1999 by amending certain provisions of Section 89 of the Civil Procedure Code (CPC).

Asked if mediation would succeed in India as each State has its own rules and regulations and even amendments to Central acts, he points out that the United States has more states in India and the laws there are equally diverse.

Enumerating the similarities in the legal system of the India and the U.S., he says

Even in the U.S. there was fierce resistance when mediation was sought to be introduced nearly two decades ago. Today, the five-year delay for a case to come to trial has been reduced to one year and in California, only two per cent of the cases are resolved through full trial, he said.

Backing the mediation model introduced in Bangalore,

Mr. Mayo said Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court Cyriac Joseph was instrumental in ensuring that it was the advocates and not judicial officers who were first trained in the techniques of mediation.

Delhi model

While the Delhi model, which was initially implemented in Tis Hazari courts, related to the training of judicial officers, the Karnataka High Court initiated the process of training advocates in mediation. So far, 59 advocates with at least 15 years experience have been trained.

Mr. Mayo said that the success of the Bangalore programme could be gauged from the fact that 29 mediators had already resolved 148 cases and this on an average worked out to 3 cases a day. By July, Bangalore would have at least 80 skilled mediators and each one of them could mediate and resolve two to three cases a day.

Even if 60 of them mediated two cases a week, 120 cases would be resolved in the period and at least 500 a month, he said.

Mr. Mayo said that advocates would be more than willing to participate in the programme as it would stand to benefit them the most. Besides, it would create a new class of entrepreneurs and also ensure that they could participate in private mediation.

Mr. Justice Cyriac Joseph said the Bangalore model would ensure that judges and judicial officers were free to carry on with their work while the advocate-mediators would take the lead in resolving cases through mediation.

Notification

Mr. Justice Gopal Gowda said that mediation rules had already been notified by the High Court and that it was now mandatory for the trial court to suggest to the parties any four options — mediation, conciliation, arbitration or Lok Adalat.

Justice N. Kumar said the system was bound to take off as it involved the advocate and the client at every stage of mediation. It was mandatory for the parties to ensure that their advocates were present at mediation proceedings, he said.

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