The state of alarm experienced a few months ago has shown us that the judicial route is not always the most effective, since for at least two months the judicial system of our country was paralyzed by the Covid-19 crisis.
Following Royal Decree 463/2020 approved by the Government on March 14 of this year, courts and tribunals have remained closed for all matters that were not considered essential. And without a doubt, this situation has led us to give prominence to other means of conflict management and resolution, such as mediation.
Once the state of alarm was over, and the courts were now in operation, we were able to see how congested the open processes already registered in the courts were and to which we must also add all the new conflicts derived from the pandemic.
And this is where mediation appears as the most effective, agile and economical alternative in the management of commercial and civil conflicts for the judicial system of our country.
Mediation is defined as a dispute resolution mechanism through which the parties in conflict agree to entrust themselves to a third party to assist them in the process of achieving a mutually satisfactory solution to their dispute.
This process is aimed at achieving an agreement or transactional solution that puts an end to the controversy that has arisen between the parties, usually derived from a previous contractual relationship.
To promote this alternative to conflict resolution in the jurisdictional order, it is necessary to adopt legislative measures of a procedural nature, without forgetting the important work of raising awareness and training the agents involved (from the companies themselves to lawyers).
In this way, some of the measures provided for in the Draft Law to Promote Mediation, such as the so-called “mitigated obligation”, could be very effective.
This measure means that the parties are obliged to make an attempt at mediation prior to the filing of certain lawsuits, or when the court within a process considers it appropriate for the parties to resort to this figure.
In both cases the purpose is to achieve a more agile and effective solution
