Office of the Judiciary Out-of-Court Mediation Rules - 3

Article 4
Conducting the Mediation

1. The Mediator shall conduct the Mediation proceedings in the manner agreed by the parties. If, and to the extent that, the parties have not made such agreement, the Mediator shall, in accordance with these Rules, determine the manner in which the Mediation shall be conducted. In all cases the Mediator should be guided by the principles of fairness, impartiality, neutrality, and independence and by the wishes of the parties. The Mediator does not have the authority to impose upon the parties a solution to the dispute.

2. At the beginning of the Mediation proceedings, the Mediator should in an opening statement include the following without limitation:

  1. give the parties a very basic description of the Mediation process, including but not limited to the possibility that the Mediator might caucus separately with each party,
  2. inform the parties of their right to counsel during the Mediation proceedings,
  3. inform parties of their right to counsel before they sign any Settlement Agreement,
  4. generally describe the Rules on confidentiality provisions,
  5. clarify that the Mediator is neutral, impartial, and independent,
  6. describe the rights of the parties to self-determination without coercion, and
  7. state that the Mediator is not representing any of the parties individually or collectively.

3. After stating the information described in paragraph 2 above, the Mediator should ask the parties to sign a written Statement of Understanding as set out in Appendix 4. The Statement of Understanding restates the information the Mediator should tell the parties. The Mediator should also sign and date the Statement of Understanding.

4.In the absence of an agreement of the parties, the Mediator shall determine the language or languages of the proceedings and the place of any meetings to be held. The costs of the interpreters and translators shall be borne by the parties equally, unless the parties have reached some other agreement on allocation of the costs.

5.Each party shall cooperate in good faith with the Mediator, including but not limited in the Mediator’s requests to the parties for the exchange of documents and in the Mediator’s efforts to advance the mediation as expeditiously as possible.

Article 5
Terminating the Mediation

1. Upon the termination of the Mediation, the Mediator shall promptly send to ADRO a notice in writing that the Mediation is terminated and shall indicate the date on which it terminated, whether or not the Mediation resulted in a settlement of the dispute and, if so, whether the settlement was full or partial. The Mediator shall send to the parties a copy of the notice so addressed to ADRO.

2. The ADRO shall keep the said notice of the Mediator confidential and shall not, without the written authorization of the parties, disclose either the existence or the result of the Mediation to any person.

3. The ADRO may, however, include information concerning the Mediation in any aggregate statistical data that it publishes concerning its activities, provided that such information does not reveal the identity of the parties or enable the particular circumstances of the dispute to be identified.