Samoa has seen its fair share of court disputes over the decades.
But a new era in settling legal disagreements was sealed yesterday with the swearing in of a final group of mediators under new mediation laws aimed at decreasing the number of civil cases that make it to court.
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These included all the Supreme Court judges including His Honour Chief Justice Patu Falefatu Sapolu, all assessed and are now Accredited Mediators for Samoa, according to a press release from the Accredited Mediators of Samoa Association.
The training was conducted under the Ministry of Justice & Courts Administration and International Finance Corporation as part of the "Samoa Commercial Mediation Project", which concludes at the end of March 2014.
Adoption of new mediation laws in December 2013, means that the majority of the civil cases will now be referred to mediation first unless the parties specifically request otherwise.
This has seen an increase in case referrals to the Court Annexed Mediation Unit, hence the increase in Accredited Mediators.
Along with the Judiciary, a select group of C.E.Os and other leaders in the community were included in the last mediation training under the project.
Yesterday’s award ceremony was also to farewell Professor Nadja Alexander who has been in the delivery of all the trainings, along with drafting of the respective Act and Rules.
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