Extract of Parliament Report – 12^th -13th Feb 2009

COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY DEBATE

MINISTRY OF LAW

Community Mediation

Ms Ellen Lee (Sembawang GRC): Community Mediation Centres (CMCs) have been in existence and in operation since January 1998.  CMCs have been useful in settling disputes which would otherwise have to go the normal litigation route.  However, increasingly, my residents are complaining that their disputes cannot be resolved because their neighbours refuse to go for mediation, especially  in cases involving noise, dirty laundry, high-rise litter and the encroachment of space. Would the Ministry of Law consider:

     (1)  empowering the CMCs to compel attendance in cases assessed to be genuine and non-frivolous;

    (2)   making settlements enforceable between the parties with sanction meted out for non-compliance; and

    (3)  escalating contentious cases for resolution by community mediation tribunal.

The Senior Minister of State for Law (Assoc. Prof. Ho Peng Kee): … MinLaw has been actively promoting the use of community mediation through various measures.  We have established an effective community mediation service, with a network of Community Mediation Centres (CMCs) and a strong pool of trained volunteer mediators, currently standing at 132.  We have also strengthened our Magistrates’ referral framework and worked closely with key partners such as the police, HDB, the Courts, Grassroots Advisers and other key frontline agencies to ensure that appropriate cases are channelled to the CMC as early as possible.  Sir, these efforts have yielded positive results.  In the past three years, CMC handled yearly an average of about 550 to 650 mediation sessions with a 70 to 75% success rate, in other words, three out of four cases resulted in mediated agreements.  For cases that were not successfully mediated, the opportunity that the parties had to hear each other out before a neutral third party would already have had a salutary effect.

As Ms Lee points out, currently, the three main challenges are firstly, getting the parties to come to the CMC; secondly, getting them to abide by the mediated settlements; and thirdly, the need for an avenue to obtain final adjudication when cases cannot be resolved through mediation.

Sir, we have been working on these issues.  On the first, whilst not fully convinced that making mediation compulsory is the way to go, we have taken steps to nudge the parties towards mediating their dispute.  The first step, taken about four years ago, was when we interposed Persuaders to seek out unwilling parties, to convince them to give mediation a try.  Soon, we will take another step when we amend the Criminal Procedure Code or CPC.  An amendment provides that Police will, in an appropriate case, refer the parties to mediate at the CMC.  Then another amendment provides that where any party fails or refuses to go for mediation without reasonable cause and after such referral, should the case escalate to the Court thereafter, the Court may draw such inference from the refusal as it considers proper.  In this way, parties who refuse to appear for mediation when the other party has requested for it following a Police referral will know that there may be consequences to their refusal.

On the second issue of enforcing the parties’ agreements, CMC’s role is to provide the parties with a neutral platform to jointly work out a mutually acceptable solution to their problem.  It does not have an enforcement function.  The settlements arrived at between the parties are binding on them essentially as private agreements, arrived at through negotiation and consent. As agreements, they are enforceable in a Civil Court in the event of a breach.  It is not for the CMC to secure the enforcement of such private agreements on the parties' behalf.

Nevertheless, I appreciate the point that Ms Lee makes.  Hence, the CMC has reviewed its template for settlement agreements, and will incorporate into them a dispute resolution clause that will route any disagreement concerning the mediated results back to the CMC for further mediation, if the parties agree. This will give the parties some assurance that after mediating the dispute, the CMC can still play a role to help them work out their differences.

I hope that these two enhancements will incentivise disputing parties to exhaust all mediation options before considering going to the Courts.

On the third issue of providing a forum for adjudication should mediation fail, the Neighourhood Court was established by the Subordinate Courts last year precisely to fulfil this role.  This Court is presided by lay Justices of the Peace who are senior lawyers with experience in such matters.  Five were appointed last year and have so far heard three cases.  Thus, we do have in place a system to deal with these disputes.