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The Supreme Court has a clear vision of the need to develop mediation in the context of ensuring access to justice, increasing Ukraine's investment attractiveness and relieving social tension in society. This was stated by Olena Bilokon, Judge of the Supreme Court in the Civil Cassation Court, speaking online at the IX International Forum "Mediation and Law".
The use of mediation has obvious advantages for the judicial system: mediation can help reduce the burden on the judiciary by relieving it of a number of cases related to both disputes and enforcement of court decisions. At the same time, judges appreciate that parties to a conflict can use mediation's inherent humanistic approach to resolving disputes and contribute to building a peaceful society.
The Supreme Court sends important signals of support for the development of conciliation procedures.
In particular, a series of events dedicated to mediation took place in 2023–2024, either involving Supreme Court judges or hosted by the Court. Thus, on 16 November 2023 (the second anniversary of the adoption of the Law of Ukraine "On Mediation"), the SC held a roundtable discussion "Judiciary and Mediation: Points of Intersection". In 2024-2025, SC judges participated in national and international interprofessional conferences on dispute resolution.
The purpose of such meetings is to strengthen institutional and professional ties between mediators and judges, lawyers and legal professionals, including those dealing with family conflict resolution. After all, court procedures do not always take into account the specific features of family disputes, and children feel uncomfortable in court, even with the introduction of the child-friendly justice concept. Therefore, mediation can help resolve such disputes with a balance of interests of all parties to the family conflict.
That is why the Supreme Court promotes mediation, including in the training of judges specialising in family cases. This initiative is being implemented within the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the SC and UNICEF Ukraine, which provides for cooperation in developing effective mechanisms for introducing and promoting mediation as an alternative way to resolve family disputes, with the aim of making peaceful and fair decisions in the best interests of children.
As the speaker noted, the Supreme Court is trying to realise the potential of mediation in the administration of justice, since according to the provisions of the Law of Ukraine "On Mediation", mediation can be conducted before going to court, or during court proceedings, or during the execution of a court decision.
The amendments to the procedural codes adopted by the legislator simultaneously with the adoption of the Law of Ukraine "On Mediation" encourage judges to inform the parties about the possibility of applying to the mediation procedure to resolve a conflict (dispute). These provisions are in line with the adversarial nature of the process and the judge's duty to facilitate the settlement of the dispute by reaching an agreement between the parties, while maintaining objectivity and impartiality. At the same time, a person does not lose the opportunity to use the judicial system if conciliation procedures do not achieve the desired goal. To date, there is experience of the Supreme Court suspending court proceedings for the duration of mediation (Supreme Court ruling of 16 November 2023 in case No. 910/18802/21).
In the context of effective implementation of conciliation procedures in the legal culture, it is important to amend the court statistics, which will reflect the number of mediations, conciliation and dispute resolution procedures involving a judge starting in 2025.
Representatives of the judicial system are trained on mediation in order to understand the essence of this conciliation procedure and to use the best practices of mediation in the process of dispute resolution with the participation of a judge. Therefore, a survey is currently underway to determine the number of judges and court staff who have been trained as mediators.
The role of courts in promoting mediation is significant. For more than a year now, a special section for citizens on mediation has been integrated into the web portal of the Ukrainian judiciary. Today, in any court of Ukraine, on the website and in printed materials, Ukrainian citizens can obtain information about mediation, its relationship to court proceedings and options for finding mediators.
As part of its international cooperation in the field of mediation, the Supreme Court has recently signed a Partnership Agreement with GEMME (Groupement Européen des Magistrats pour la Médiation - European Association of Judges for Mediation) to support European standards for the development of mediation in Ukrainian courts, which is an important step in the context of Ukraine's integration into the EU.
The Forum was organised by the Ukrainian Academy of Mediation within the framework of the project "CONSENT: Enhancing the Role of Alternative Dispute Resolution in Ukraine with a Focus on Mediation" in cooperation with the EU project "Pravo-Justice", implemented with the financial support of the European Union.
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