Mediation and Court in Ukraine: Perspectives on Interaction and Mutual Understanding

Abstract

In this note, the authors identify some problems concerning the introduction of mediation in Ukraine in terms of its use in the consideration and resolution of court cases. Despite the lack of clear legal regulation for mediation, courts in Ukraine still try to use this mechanism of pre-trial dispute resolution. Particular attention is paid to the law enforcement activities of courts in criminal and administrative cases, in which courts try to equate the conciliation procedure with the mediation procedure. These approaches clearly follow from the Resolutions and Recommendations of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and the settled case-law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) since, back in 1975, the ECtHR in its decision Golder v. The United Kingdom ruled that it is unlikely that the rule of law can be imagined without access to justice. However, the presumption that the courts are the main institution for resolving disputes continues to be undermined by the proliferation of alternative forms of dispute resolution, both agreement-based and judicial.