Snezana Stojanovic, a judge in the Belgrade’s Second Municipal Court, gave up a lot of authority to take her new job, but she is accomplishing more now than ever. That may sound contradictory, but it’s true – and it tells a lot about an innovation that is quietly changing the Serbian judicial system.
The change is Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), a results-oriented approach to resolving legal disagreements that uses skills many of us learned – but forgot – in elementary school: talk problems out face-to-face, look for solutions rather than trying to assign blame, and move on. ADR takes a variety of forms, but in Serbia it basically boils down to getting lawyers and judges out of the way so that people, aided by trained mediators, can settle their differences on their own.
It works. In Serbia’s first two years of offering ADR, settlements were reached in 1,800 of 2,000 cases where it was used. And a survey of participants showed that all of the respondents – that’s 100% – said they were fully or at least partially satisfied. Some 93% said that mediation increased their trust in the legal system. ADR also is fast. In Serbia, contract disputes that go to litigation typically require 40 separate proceedings and can take years to resolve. But ADR cases are usually settled in a single session. And while protracted litigation can easily wind up costing 150,000 Euros, a typical dispute that goes through ADR costs just 1,800 Euros.
IFC is helping four countries in Southeastern Europe establish ADR systems (Serbia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia), advising them on the legal framework for ADR, assisting on pilot projects such as the one in Belgrade’s Second Municipal Court, and supporting efforts to train mediators. Although ADR isn’t limited to commercial cases – in Serbia, 60% of cases that go to ADR involve family and other, non-commercial cases – it has clear implications for economic development. For one thing, judicial reform is a prerequisite for admission to the European Union – a goal eagerly sought Southeastern Europe. What’s more, a backlog of cases awaiting trial has grown to 500,000 in Serbia, and is going up 10% a year. And finally, ADR frees up capital that otherwise could be frozen for years by litigation; the first 1,800 Serbian ADR cases settled led to the release of 33.2 million Euros.
People clearly like the idea. The National Mediation Center, which operates out of the Ministry of Justice, has more requests for the five-day training than it can handle. Training is open to anybody with a college degree – doctors, engineers, journalists, and – yes – even lawyers. But lawyers, in particular, may have to forget some of the things they learned in law school. In ADR, explains the Second Municipal Court’s Judge Stojanovic, the mediator doesn’t try to control the process the way judges do. Rather, she is just “one part of the chain,” who gently helps participants resolve their differences amicably.
In court, Stojanovic looks down on litigants from a dais stacked high with legal filings. But in mediation, she joins them around a table under soft lighting, a Santa Claus doll perched on a nearby bookcase. And while in court she issues stern rulings on what participants can and cannot say, in mediation she encourages people to say things that wouldn’t be admissible in court. “Sometimes, just letting people express themselves first gets them ready to negotiate,” she explains.
Does Judge Stojanovic miss having the final say? Not at all. When she runs a courtroom, she says, all the litigants – even the winners – eventually come to resent the control she has over their lives. “But in mediation, both parties end up satisfied,” she smiles. “I like that much more.”
