Article written bya: Ángel B. Gómez Puerto. Jurist. Specialized in Family Mediation from the University of Córdoba (UCO).
[dropcap1]T[/dropcap1]n the last academic year I had the opportunity to take the first edition of the Specialization Diploma in Family Mediation and Minors in Intra- and Extrajudicial Conflict. Was my first contact with mediation, with this new methodology (for me until then) of addressing conflicts and their resolution. Almost a hundred jurists and professionals in psychology, social education, social work or pedagogy take this official training program of our University.
But it's not new. Already in 1998, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, after recognizing the significant increase in the number of family disputes, particularly separations or divorces and the harmful consequences for the family, considered that to guarantee the protection of the best interests of the child and their well-being, it was necessary for the States will take measures to institute or promote family mediation as an appropriate method for resolving these conflicts. In that sense, last year the Spanish State was equipped with the Law 5/2012, on mediation in civil and commercial matters.
And at the legislative level of Andalusia, in which also, like other autonomous communities (the first was Law 1/2001, on Family Mediation of Catalonia), a specific regulatory provision has been issued, Law 1/2009 regulating the Family Mediation in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia, defines mediation as “a conflict management procedure in which the opposing parties agree that a qualified third person, impartial and neutral help them to reach an agreement on their own that allows them to resolve the conflict that confronts them without the need to submit it to a judicial authority.”• This process will be carried out, the text continues, “with the support of a third person, "which plays the role of mediator and is subject to principles such as voluntariness, impartiality, neutrality and confidentiality."
[quote style=»boxed» float=»right»]«Law 1/2009 regulating Family Mediation in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia, defines mediation as “a conflict management procedure…”[/quote]
Family mediation, really, is an alternative conflict resolution process to the classic one that Judges and Courts offer us in the form of sentences. With family mediation we facilitate communication between the parties in situations of family or marital crisis, and we empower them to generate solutions to the conflict. It is the parties themselves who propose their own solutions, moderated and guided by the family mediation professional.
Key consideration is that the serious emotional crisis produced by any marital breakdown, it has been shown that the prominence that the mediation process gives to the parties in conflict contributes very effectively to overcoming many of these problems, since instead of the passivity that comes with delegating to third parties (lawyers or judges), family mediation implies an effort on the part of the party to regain prominence regarding their own problems, as well as the responsibility of overcoming them, seeking the best solution for the future. In short, it empowers them in the search for solutions to their family crisis.
How he maintains Pascual Ortuño, one of the pioneering judges in family mediation, referring to litigation situations regarding children, these are “real wars to obtain custody of children,” which “not even the most expert negotiators, nor the most brilliant lawyers, can provide a solution to this problem, which generates more hatred, more humiliation and more resentment.”
Another important conclusion is that it is in the field of possession or custody of sons and daughters after the breakup where family mediation can have more meaning, more prominence as a positive method of conflict resolution and of providing fair solutions and adjusted to each situation, and which, agreed upon in a mediation process, will have more durability over time, and will better serve the interests of the minor, the mother and the father. Without a doubt, the determination of the way in which the children are cared for and cared for, and the mode of relationship What they will have with their parents after the breakup is a topic clearly susceptible to family mediation.
Particularly interesting and convenient is the application of the family mediation methodology in cases in which the mother and father are willing to agree on a shared custody system, equal parental responsibility regarding their children. In these cases, the communication process itself is key not only to jointly find the best system, but also to its proper functioning over time.
We are therefore faced with a new professional field for jurists and professionals in psychology, social education/social work and pedagogy, with the challenge of responding to a growing social demand, the peaceful solution of family conflicts, without trauma, to develop processes and methodologies that help families after their breakup to design their new life project, reconciling and balancing all the parts in conflict, mothers, fathers and minors.
