Nangkha Nangdrig, an age-old customary practice of mediation is gaining popularity as it saves time and cost for the litigants. The court-annexed mediation units in the courts have proven to be a win-win situation for all involved, hence it has become important for the courts to train bench clerks in mediation. For this, the Bhutan National Legal Institute (BNLI) has been training bench clerks since 2019 on court-annexed mediation, which is the process in which a mediator negotiates cases without having to forward them to the court. The institute trained 19 more bench clerks at Tsirang this week.
Nineteen bench clerks from the Supreme Court, High Court and five western district courts attended the training, which ended today. The participants were taught about the principles and process of mediation, which are required for smooth conduct of dispute resolutions and negotiations.
According to BNLI, the service has helped litigants save time and cost. This is because litigants who wish to settle their civil cases through mediation will not have to look for mediators outside the court.
“Court-annexed mediation has two benefits. Firstly, it will benefit those who avail themselves of mediation services since it is free of cost and cases will be solved within a short period of time. Secondly, the courts will be also benefited because when we have less registered cases, the court can pass quality judgments within a shorter time,” said Pema Needup, the Director-General of BNLI.
The institute has trained around a hundred bench clerks including the current batch. According to the Mediation Report 2020, over 440 cases have been mediated in the court-annexed mediation units across the country since its inception in 2019. There are currently 27 court-annexed mediation units in the country.
“When cases are solved through mediation, parties will have more time to express their grievances and problems. Usually, some people face difficulty in expressing their problems when cases have to be solved through the court,” said Tsheten Wangchuk, a participant.
“Mediation is an age-old tradition and it has been a few years after establishing court-annexed mediation units in the courts. The six-day training has provided us enough knowledge in settling cases if parties decide to solve their cases through mediation,” added Chimi Rabten, another participant.
According to the institute, some courts faced a shortage of trained bench clerks to handle cases. This training would help solve the problem.
“The training is crucial because some courts don’t have trained mediation bench clerks because most of them were reshuffled last year. Because of this, the courts could handle only 443 cases so far. Our target is to train all the bench clerks across the country to provide smooth mediation services to all the people who wish to avail themselves of the service,” the Director-General of BNLI said.
According to reports, resolving disputes through mediation gained popularity since 2012 after local government leaders were trained to carry out mediation in their respective gewogs.
Pema Tshewang, Tsirang
