Practice of mediation at local level : A case study of Sandakpur rural municipality, Ilam district Nepal

Abstract

Practice of mediation for dispute resolution in Local Judicial System has formally adopted after the effectiveness of Local Government Operation Act, 2017 in Nepal. But the practice under judicial system was started in 2018. The practice of mediation in local judicial system is very new.

The main objectives of the study were to assess the status of the practice of mediation in local judicial system focusing the concept on mediation, benefit of mediation, legal provisions, and its implementation to analyze the context and explore gaps. The study was focused on exploring the practice of mediation in Sandakpur Rural Municipality in Ilam district.

The study collected philosophical principles on mediation, its concepts, benefit, experiences, recommendation and relevance in context of Nepalese society from team of experts and disputants. The expert's responses prioritized the need of mediation as a constructive, creative, simplest approach to assure justice at home in local context.

The study has also explored the legal provisions and experiences of implementation at local judicial system in study area. It was found that the judicial committee, mediators and disputants accepted mediation as the most effective approach to dispute resolution than other approaches as per their experiences, as well as it could be implemented in very short period of time.

The study has also explored the existing gaps and laps that hampered the effective implementation of mediation at local judicial service. Thus, the study recommends that the concern local governments, civil society and local stakeholders should focus to improve physical resources, human resources and educating citizen to manage linkage between service and citizen with quality justice service.