October 3 2019, Academy of Justice with the support of GIZ organized training on Alternative Dispute Resolution, with particular emphasis on mediation – civil law area, within its Continuous Training Program.
First part of the training elaborated on the role and responsibilities of judges about referral of cases to mediation, and importance and responsibility that mediator has towards parties involved in the dispute during the mediation session. Second part of the training elaborated on mediation and enforcement of agreements reached in mediation procedure.
This training emphasized that application of alternative forms of dispute resolution, mediation in particular, is really important as it increases the legal safety and enables foreign investment attraction which is a necessity for economic development, because in modern world of doing business, businesses and citizens are interested to solve their disputes outside judicial procedures.
Furthermore, it was highlighted that Republic of Kosovo in its efforts to create a modern legal system, has established legal basis that enables alternative dispute resolution. Concretely, mediation in Kosovo is regulated by the Law No. 03/L-057 (2008), repealed by Law No. 06/L-009 on Mediation – Official Gazette No. 14 (2018). Whereas, implementation in practice started in 2012 when the first mediators have been licensed and the Mediation Centers have opened in several cities of Kosovo. In the international aspect, mediation is regulated by the Law Model or the UNICTRAL, then with the Directive 2008/52/EC, which obliges the EU member states to regulate the matter of mediation with special laws and this tells sufficiently about importance of this tool. Also, it was highlighted that judges in Kosovo shall know new rules of national and international domain on mediation, its advantages, legal consequences, then their role for referral of cases to mediation centers, and position of mediators.
The training continued with the highlight that large number of disputes, caused that their solution through judicial ways is difficult and it takes time, and this all happened because of the courts inability to cope with the large flux of these cases, and lack of human resources and several other factors. There has been continuous search for efficient solution for disputes between different parties and one of these alternatives is mediation that is now known in democratic world and implemented in most of the countries.
Beneficiaries of this training were judges of Basic Courts – general department, civil department, and professional associates as well as mediators.
03-10-2019