The Minister for Justice has recently announced that the long awaited Mediation Bill will be published later this year. The Bill will, inter alia, place a duty upon Members to advise parties to disputes to consider utilising mediation as a means of resolving them.  In so doing, the Bill reflects extant good practice at the Bar of mooting mediation as a timely and cost effective means of resolving certain types of disputes.  Perhaps more notably, the Bill provides that a party commencing civil proceedings shall provide the court with a written statement confirming that their solicitor advised on the possible use of mediation to resolve the matter. The Bill will provide a statutory footing for the extant judicial practice in the superior courts in the determining of costs where the court shall have regard to any “unreasonable” refusal by a party to consider using mediation where such a process had, in the court’s opinion, a reasonable prospect of success.

JSF (18.10.2015)