Badilag and Family Court to Design Mediation Orientation
DG of Badilag, Wahyu Widiana (the center), Leisha Lister from FCoA (the left)
and Nicola Colbran from AIPJ (the right)
Jakarta | badilag.net (03/10/2011)
In cooperation with Family Court of Australia, the Directorate General of the Religious Courts (Badilag) is designing a model of mediation training for Religious Courts’ judges. In a preparatory meeting held in Badilag office (03/10), the Director General of the Religious Courts, Wahyu Widiana explained that the meeting was held to discuss the goals to be achieved, obstacles and solutions.
“We want the training will result as we all expect to,” Wahyu Widiana agaid stated.
The meeting itself was attended by representatives of AIPJ (Indonesia-Australia Partnership for Justice), Relationship of Australia, the World Bank, some leaders of the Reeligious Courts and judges, Secretary of Badilag, and Priority Reformation Program Monitoring Team of Badilag.
The need to design a new model of mediation is more or less motivated by some factors. Even most of religious courts’ judges had attended mediation trainings, both inside and outside the country, but the trainings were still not focused on the competence of the Religious Courts, particularly in the areas of divorce, matrimonial property and child custody.
Leisha with two experts from Relationship of Australia, Simon Curran and Ian Law
The success rate of mediation is also still very low. According to Zainuddin Fajari, vice chief of the High Religious Court of Jakarta, who has conducted a survey on mediation practiced by some Religious Courts in Java and Sumatera, of all the cases heard, there only 5 percents can be mediated successfully.
At least, he went on, there are three factors causing the low rate of success of mediation. Firstly, the conflicts which precede the divorce are mostly related to self-esteem and dignity. Secondly, before filing the divorce petition at the Religious Court, the disputes have been settled at the family circumstances, which sometimes involving community leaders and others. And thirdly, the skills of mediator. Mediators usually advise the parties by reciting the holy verses, hadith, the words of wise scholars, and recalling beautiful moments before the wedding.
"But unfortunately, it can not touch the fundamental issue," he said.
This situation is then very different from the experience of the Family Court of Australia in handling the same issues. FCoA is fairly successful in mediating family matters. Most of family disputes can be solved without relying on the judges. Disputes are usually about the property after the divorce and child custody.
"In Australia, only 13 percent of cases are forwarded to the court and only 6 percent of them decided by judges," Leisha Lister from the Family Court explained.
Nicola Colbran, the Program Director of AIPJ, said that her institution is very pleased to be involved in designing mediation training for judges of religious courts. Family Court, as an experienced party conducting mediation in Australia, then towed. In addition, Relationship of Australia, a mediation agency that works for the Family Court, are also invited as well.
"We want to hear the field experiences, to ensure training objectives are appropriate, as expected by the Religious Courts and the justice seekers," Nicola said, regarding the purpose of this meeting.
Nicola Colbran added, some experts from Australia will formulate the training materials, the participants, the venue, the time, and etc. The experiences of the Religious Courts and of the Family Court of Australia will be worth for preparing the training.
The mediation training itself will be held next year for three times, and each training will be followed by 30 judges. "We hope this training could be conducted continuously, the material and how it will be delivered can be improved on," Nicola said.
(Mohammad Noor)