The Ministry of Justice is preparing a revolution for 7,000 people. mediators. Will they eliminate weak specialists?

This year, the Ministry of Justice presented a draft act on court mediators, accredited mediation centers and the National Register of Mediators. According to the head of the institution training mediators, the ministry's proposal goes in the desired direction – especially in the area of ​​training and qualifications – but requires supplementation with a code of ethics, principles of professional responsibility and remuneration issues.

– As the director of the Lewiatan Mediation Center, a certifying institution since 2020, I think that the ministry is heading in the right direction when it comes to the education and qualifications of mediators – says Małgorzata Miszkin-Wojciechowska, legal adviser and director of the Lewiatan Mediation Center, to the Newseria news agency.

The most important problem that the Ministry of Justice and the judges who refer cases to mediation are currently talking about is whether there will actually be good mediators who will be able to deal with all the cases referred to them.

The government is working on the draft act on court mediators, accredited mediation centers and the National Register of Mediators, submitted by the Minister of Justice. For now, it is at the stage of inter-ministerial consultations, although according to the original plans, the Council of Ministers was to deal with it in the third quarter of this year. The project assumes the introduction of a National Register of Mediators, which would be a central register containing information on mediators conducting mediations ordered by the court.. It is intended to replace the existing paper lists of permanent mediators kept by the presidents of district courts and lists of institutions and persons authorized to conduct mediation proceedings.

The proposed act specifies the conditions that a natural person must meet to become a court mediator, as well as the rules for entering and deleting a court mediator from the register, the conditions that an entity must meet to become an accredited mediation center, and the rules for maintaining the register.

According to Małgorzata Miszkin-Wojciechowska, the project requires clarification.

– There are no provisions regarding the code of ethics and professional responsibility of mediatorsi.e. to what extent and for what would mediators be liable if, for example, they violated the code of professional ethics for mediators. This was not included in the project, says the legal advisor. – There were also no regulations regarding, for example, the remuneration of mediators, which is currently regulated by another regulation. It seems that if we are dealing with a draft act on the profession of mediators, it should be included here. For example, mediators may agree on separate remuneration with the parties if the parties agree to it.

As he describes, the mediator community numbers approximately 7,000. people (data from 2023) and this number is growing because there are more people willing to join the lists of mediators kept by the presidents of district courts in given towns. He also emphasizes that most lawyers, barristers and legal advisors obtain mediator qualifications, seeing it as an opportunity to diversify their professional offer.

It is important that mediators have appropriate education and that the services they provide are at an appropriate level, says Małgorzata Miszkin-Wojciechowska.

The profession of mediator is currently regulated by various regulations. The Code of Civil Procedure outlines the basic conditions that a mediator should meet. Pursuant to Art. 183, it may be a natural person with full legal capacity and fully enjoying public rights. He should also remain impartial when conducting mediation. A judge cannot become a mediator, but this prohibition does not apply to retired judges. The Code indicates that the mediator has the right to remuneration and reimbursement of expenses related to conducting mediation, unless he has agreed to conduct mediation without remuneration. The remuneration and reimbursement of expenses are borne by the parties.

– This is not a very broad list of requirements that a mediator should legitimize in order to be included on the list of permanent mediators – says the director of the Lewiatan Mediation Center. – Hence the proposal of the Ministry of Justice to regulate and increase the requirements for entry on the list of permanent mediators goes in a very good direction. The fact is that these regulations were introduced in 2005 or 2006 and since then, basically, the conditions that the mediator has to meet have not changed. Now is the time to do it.

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