Monday, Mar 5, 2007
An International Platform For Out of Court Settlement of Disputes in New Delhi
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With billions of legal battles awaiting final verdicts for years around the world, many of them taking decades for final judgement, an international forum to encourage out of court settlements of disputes has been raised.
Established recently in New Delhi, the International Centre for Alternative Disputes Resolution, seeks to sort out disputes through out of court settlement.
The forum will give options to the concerned parties to resolve disputes through negotiation, mediation or arbitration.
In this system, the arbitrator is an independent expert jointly chosen by both or all parties for a decision that is binding.
International Centre for Alternative Disputes Resolution is expected to cater to the demand of an alternative mechanism for sorting out disputes avoiding decades longs courtroom battles. The move has the support of intellectual fraternity around the world.
It will provide an early settlement of cases relating to matrimonial or property matters.
It was commonly agreed that a big percentage of court cases awaiting their hearing could have been resolved much earlier had there been an alternative system to address them. In the absence of any reliable legal alternative to the present time-consuming litigation process, the court trials cost petitioners their lifetime in many cases.
The fact that there were about 30 million cases pending in Indian courts till last year bespeaks the urgency to have an alternative system for the relief of common man.
Most of the time, the people fail to realise that when did their personal disputes turn into legal courtroom battles.That dividing line has further blurred in the recent years with legal options being jumped upon on even minor issues worldwide.
Whether a case is related to a tenant, property, divorce, cheating or small thefts, the legal system, irrespective of countries, has failed to arrange a speedy justice system.
And, this makes the role of the International Centre for Alternative Disputes Resolution all the more significant for facilitate legal help.
Interestingly, in Indian villages, for centuries, village councils had long resolved the disputes through Panchayat System, which has used counselling or negotiation or mediation as a tool for early resolution of almost all disputes at village level.
And that has given rise to the need for a formalised alternative dispute resolution mechanism. Not just in India, but in some advanced countries too.
"Yes the countries in the West are also facing similar problems. And, part of the solution is lying with the courts themselves to try and manage the cases more effectively so that the parties cannot let them dreg on. And, the lawyers cannot leave them indefinitely. And, the rest part of the solution is with the people, they should try to solve their cases without going to the courts" said Baroness Brenda, Hale of Richmond, the first lady "Lord of Appeal" from United Kingdom, in a function held in New Delhi recently.
While the out-of-court settlement mechanism has registered 80 per cent success worldwide, in India it stands abysmally low at 10 percent.
During a recently held international conference on Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) in the Capital, the participants including various distinguished legal experts from different parts of the world agreed that there was need encouraging out of court settlement mechanism, which the courts are too clogged to offer.
"The notion that ordinary people want black robe judges, well-dressed lawyers and the busy court rooms to settle their disputes is not correct. People with their legal problem are like people with the pain. They want relief and they want it more quickly and as inexpensive as possible, " said K.G. Bala Krishnan Chief Justice of India.
It is being felt that the system of Alternative Dispute Resolution has a range of benefits that involves relatively low cost than a normal litigation procedure takes and offering a far speedy disposal of justice and conciliation.
Both the parties have full control over selection of private judges or arbitrators. And the fact that these proceedings can be conducted online through internet, means a big relief for people involved in disputes across countries.
The government is all set to remove the legal hackles in the way of multinational companies' who don't wish to involve themselves in exhausting litigations.
"It is absolutely vital for a legal profile to come back to the government and indicate that if we want alternative dispute resolution to work, we have to ensure that this is a substitute
and not supplement to the litigations," said Montek Singh Ahluwalia Deputy Chairman Planning commission of India. (ANI)
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