Last week's settlement of the Tropic Air/Brett Feinstein dispute was probably one of the first major stories which hit the news about litigation in the Supreme Court case settled outside of court. But actually, Court ordered mediation has been ongoing for the past 6 months.
And while those other cases were settled quietly out of court, and out of the public domain, the participants say that it is much quicker and a lot less expensive to resolve their disputes through mediation, especially, when the court system is overloaded with work, and there are major judgments still on delay.
That's just what the Bar, the Bench, and other stakeholders discussed today in an all-day forum. Here's what the Chief Justice Had to say about it:
Justice Kenneth Benjamin - Chief Justice of Belize
"To have a justice system that's responsive to the community, we have to have one that is reflective of the ideas and aspirations of the man who is walking in the street."
Justice Courtney Abel - Judge of the Belize Supreme Court
"It's so easy for lawyers, I know, I've been there. Lawyers are taught to fight cases and much of the training in legal education is about fighting cases and the mediation process is not about fighting cases, it's about the parties. Empowering the parties to soften their approach to their disputes and trying to resolve it themselves assisted by the neutral third party. And even in relation to judges, judges are taught to try cases and most of us judges have a proprietary view of our cases and that is about the trial process."
Michael Young, SC - Practicing Attorney
"The big benefit of mediation is what the objective of any kind of process that has to do with a dispute between two parties which is to bring that dispute to an end. What has happen traditionally and this comes from even the British practice way back is that we have an adversarial system, so when two parties go to court they go to court fighting and with their legal guns. That is not necessarily the best way to bring a dispute to an end in a way which does not cost too much money and does not take too long."
The Court ordered mediation was made possible through a National Mediation Committee, and the development of its process saw extensive input from groups including the Judiciary, the Bar Association, and Restore Belize. Chief Justice Kenneth Benjamin told the gathering today that he hopes that the Executive could craft laws to enshrine mediation as part of the litigation process.
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