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Newly- trained mediators to boost Berbice judiciary
By Leon Suseran
Berbice is now fully- equipped with 25 mediators who were specially trained over
From L to R: Chief of Party, Dickson Bailey; Justice Cummings- Edwards; Ambassador Hardt and Instructor Mr. Hinds
the past week in the skill of mediating. The batch graduated on Friday at the Little Rock Suites after undergoing rigorous training through a workshop and training session that ended with the distribution of Certificates of Completion.
The Advanced Mediation Training is an activity of the Governance Enhancement Project of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), in collaboration with Justice Carl Singh, Chancellor of the Judiciary.
Present at the ceremony were U.S. Ambassador, D. Brent Hardt and Justice Yonette Cummings- Edwards of the Guyana Court of Appeal. The individuals who received the Certificate of Completion will be added to the Roster of Mediators of the High Court. They will be eligible to conduct court-connected mediation in Berbice.
The training of mediators in New Amsterdam will facilitate the expansion of court-connected mediation to Region Six during 2012.
Paul Hinds, a Jamaica- based official from the Dispute Resolution Foundation, conducted the training sessions throughout the week. A few months ago, the training began with more than 60 persons. However, twenty- five moved on to the Advanced Level.
Hinds noted that the training “will equip them to do court-connected mediation…routinely dealing with attorneys who are part of the mediation itself”.
“ Mediation”, he stated, “is a third-party process in which people who are in dispute can enlist the aid of trained neutral people to help them negotiate their differences”.
Hinds said that the mediator will use a structured process to talk and negotiate the matter and hopefully come to a settlement.
Mediation, he said is “faster, quicker and cheaper and gives persons the opportunity to ventilate some matters that may not be appropriate for court”.
The U.S Embassy officials with the new mediators
“You can get access to it since it takes three hours to do a mediation—you can engage your attorney but in terms of the cost to file a matter in court, it is cheaper”, he stated.
“It has benefits for everybody and there are attorneys involved in the process since they are a key part of the process but they would be playing a minimal role”.
The participants, during the training, were involved in “looking at the protocols of mediation”; role playing—client and attorney, making presentations; “and the mediator was expected to develop his skill in managing that process”.
There is a plan to open a mediation centre in Berbice and this will be staffed by the graduates. In 2003, 25 mediators from the legal profession were trained through a similar project, thus heralding mediation in Guyana. Between 2003 and 2008, some 75 more legal and non- legal professionals were trained and approved by the court to conduct mediation.
US Ambassador to Guyana, D. Brent Hardt, praised the mediation process especially since there is a current backlog of cases in the court system. “As it has often been stated ‘Justice delayed is justice denied’”.
Ambassador Hardt urged the new mediators not to restrict their newly- acquired mediation skills to court- connected cases, “but to use them to encourage greater tolerance and harmony in your households and communities and to help the people of Guyana to live your country’s motto”.
“You will have the distinction of being the first set of persons on the Berbice Roster of Mediators. As pioneers of mediation in Berbice, you are expected to chart the course….so that mediation really takes root in the fertile soil in Berbice.”
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