British mediation model favoured

Committee on justice: People who refuse to attend mediation in family law cases should be denied their costs if they win the case, the Minister for Justice said yesterday.

Michael McDowell said the British courts system refused costs to the "so-called winning side" if they did not attend mediation first and he believed this was a good idea. It would reduce the legal costs that were "sometimes catastrophic", he said.

Mr McDowell was speaking to the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights yesterday as he sought support for the State to get involved in discussions on a new EU directive on mediation and a proposed European small claims procedure.

He said Dublin could become an international centre for mediation and arbitration, because we had the necessary linguistic and legal advantages. The proposed EU directive would encourage mediation as a solution to difficulties which might otherwise involve legal actions.

Mr McDowell said the Government was promoting mediation as a model of dispute resolution. But mediation should not only be carried out by lawyers as some of them might be too adversarial in their approach. He said the proposed European small claims procedure would be open to business and individual claims under €2,000. It would not replace the existing Small Claims Court here which has a claims limit of €1,270. It would allow people to take small claims against people in other EU member states, but would not be confined to cross-border cases, Mr McDowell said.

The European small claims procedure would only work if all member states were committed to enforcing decisions made, he said. "This is the sort of measure that can make a real change to people's lives," he added.