Formalized 'Informal' Justice - A Critical Perspective on Mediation Centres (From Community Justice Centres - Proceedings, P 54-67, 1982 See NCJ-85780)

• NCJ Number: 85783
• Author(s): R Tomasic
• Date Published: 1982
• Length: 14 pages
• Sale Source: New South Wales
• Language: English
• Country: Australia

Annotation

Community justice centers in New South Wales (Australia) will tend to be more coercive than envisioned, will handle cases of persons who cannot gain access to the courts, and lack the authority of resolution possible in the courts.

Abstract

Although the establishment of the three pilot community justice centers in New South Wales has been touted as justice reform, it has done little to reform the court system as to permit access to legal forums by persons currently alienated from it. Further, the centers can be expected to handle cases not generally included in court dockets, such that the workload of the courts will not be significantly relieved. The centers have been established on the principle of noncoercion, but the experience of such centers in other countries is that coercion is inevitably used to build caseloads, such as threatening to refer the case to the courts or an authoritative administrative agency. Also, the lack of authority to enforce a mediated agreement achieved in a center make it unlikely that the centers can basically change exploitative interactions between the powerful and the powerless. There is a danger that the centers will constitute second-class justice for disputes among the poor while the courts continue unreformed and inaccessible to those who most need the authority of the court to relieve their distress. A bibliography of 37 listings is provided.