Facet Of Mediation

Good morning and thank you for Friday’s outing.

Find below the things to be covered in an Opening Statement:

i) Introduce yourself.

ii) Establish your impartiality
eg say you do not know the parties and have no interest in any particular outcome. It shows that you will be fair and promotes confidence in the process.

iii) Establish your credentials ie your training/ certification and experience. It gives them confidence that you have the skill and will be able to help them.

iv) Explain the role of the Mediator: I am not a Judge Judge and cannot force
anything or any decision
on you. I am here to
facilitate the discussion
between you and help you
to resolve your conflict.( Both the problem and solution being the parties)

v) Privacy and Confidentiality.
The process is private and confidential. It is without prejudice meaning that everything done or said here cannot be used anywhere else eg Court etc.

2nd level of confidentiality is that the Mediator cannot share information he got from party A in Caucaus with party B without consent of party A.

vi) Explain Plenary Session and Private Meetings/ Caucausing and the objective of Caucausing ie to dig deeper and enable parties to open up.

vii) Ground Rules.
These will help the process to run smoothly.

a) Order of Discussion
Mediator can ask the parties to choose who will go 1st. This helps to build consensus among them but if they don’t agree, the Complainant/ claimant will go 1st.

b) No interuptions: each party to ve their opportunity. Meanwhile, can note any thing they want to reply to or
talk abt in their notes while the other party is talking. Also use of offensive language not allowed. Only civil language allowed.

c) Length of hearing, can say in my experience, within 45 mins to 1 hour, we will ve a fair idea of whether we can settle this matter.

This is not mandatory and may be skipped.

d) Note taking.
For my guidance only, to enable me note areas I need to pursue further with parties. Not a record of this proceedings. At the end, the only record will be the settlement agreement if we settle. When we finish,I will tear my notes in your presence.

At the end, you will look at both parties and ask any questions?

If yes, you answer the questions but if not, you go into plenary session.