The Gauteng High Court has recently published a Directive and Protocols dealing with Mediation in that division. We have had numerous inquiries from people wanting to accredit as mediators for this Directive. What do I need to be accredited as a Mediator for the Directive? In order to qualify as a Mediator under the Directive […]
Amati, the Association of Mediation Assessors, Trainers and Instructors, held their second international conference in Coventry at the beginning of this month (March 2015). The theme was Moving Over: Developing Conversation Training and Hybrid Models in Mediation. This relatively new organisation, aimed at those of us training and assessing mediators, has the aim of “benchmarking […]
DiSAC is currently working on finalizing qualification and practice standards for Arbitrators. Once these have been adopted, DiSAC will be in a position to also accredit arbitrators. A first draft of these standards are currently being considered by DiSAC and its constituent members, and will soon be published for general consideration and comment. We look forward to […]
Section 166 of the Companies Act No. 71 of 2008 provides for alternative dispute resolution. Specifically subsection 166(1) of the Act states that as an alternative to applying for relief to a court, or filing a complaint with the Commission a person who would be entitled to apply for relief, or file a complaint in terms […]
The National Environmental Management Act [“Nema”], Chapter 4, provides for alternative dispute resolution in respect of environmental disputes. Section 21 of NEMA authorities the establishment of a Panel of persons to render facilitation, conciliation and mediation services: Appointment of panel and remuneration (2) The Minister may create a panel or panels of persons from which appointment […]
DiSAC is currently constituted in accordance with the DiSAC Operational Framework. For practical and historical reasons DiSAC was commenced as a collaboration between the various mediation and arbitration service providers in South Africa: Historical – Prior to DiSAC the service providers were the only bodies that were actively setting qualification and practice standards in South […]
The Rules for Court Annexed Mediation The Department of Justice & Constitutional Development has published amendments to the Magistrate’s Court Rules which will see voluntary court annexed mediation being brought into some of South Africa’s lower Courts on a pilot basis. The Rules for Court Annexed Mediation Though welcoming this development, DiSAC has expressed some […]
International Arbitration South Africa does not have an international arbitration regime that meets the standards set by the UNCITRAL Model Law. This is a serious impairment to South Africa’s ability to be the seat of international arbitration. In 1998 the SA Law Review Commission published recommendations and a draft Bill to address this serious problem. […]
In a previous post, I shared Professor Stacie Strong’s call for blog readers to respond to her survey on international commercial mediation practice. Thank you to everyone you did. While the final results are still pending, Prof Strong has released some preliminary results from the study. The study, which is entitled “Use and Perception of […]
(This is the first of three parts of a keynote address to the YMCA Conference “From Reactions to Relations” in Burton on Trent on 20 November 2014) Here’s an interesting phenomenon. When asked to play the part of an adversarial lawyer students have no difficulty. It’s as if the script for this activity is carved […]