The concept of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) may be introduced as part of an early-stage legal education in the proposed Academy of Law, which will be created through a proposed Bill expected to be tabled in Parliament in June.

Minister in the Prime Ministers Department Dr Rais Yatim said early exposure to the idea of ADR will provide better results as legal practitioners would already be familiar with it.

We are still considering the idea of introducing it in the academy. For now, the implementation in the courts is of priority.

There will also be opportunities to study the implementation of ADR in the US and other countries, Rais told reporters after a meeting with two US judges, Justice Clifford Wallace and Justice Wayne L Peterson, in his office in Putrajaya today.

Wallace is of the US Court of Appeal while Peterson is of the San Diego Superior Court.

Rais said he hoped that the backlog in court cases could be reduced by introducing ADR in the Malaysian court system, and justice could be better served for both feuding parties by amicable settlement.

Presently, there is a huge backlog of some 600,000 cases.

Response to ADR has been very encouraging but Rais said it must be remembered that not all legal practitioners have been exposed to the idea.

Need to promote concept

There is a need to promote the concept among lawyers and the public. We will conduct regular talks and seminars with the co-operation of our legal affairs division, law faculties in universities and the Bar Council.

When contacted, Bar Council ADR committee chairperson Kuthubul Zaman Bukhari said the amendment to Order 34 of the Rules of the High Court is pending further study by the court rules committee.

He said Chief Justice Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah, who chaired the last rules committee meeting on March 8, had requested the Bar Council to formulate the mechanism of the ADR in the court system.

Since we had proposed that ADR or mediation be incorporated in Order 34 Rules, the CJ has asked us to formulate some guidelines on how court-annexed mediation should operate.

We are looking at issues such as the types of cases suitable for ADR, the parameters of mediation, at what stage should court give direction for mediation, specific time-frame for completion of mediation and confidentiality issues, he said.

Earlier, a three-judge committee had studied the Councils proposal for ADR, which is increasingly practised in many other countries, to be incorporated into the court system.

Pool resources

Wallace said the judiciary, Malaysian Bar and the government were wise to pool resources to implement ADR through the courts.

He said it takes about 10 years to institutionalise the ADR programme because as a working process, it will be modified and changed over time by practitioners.

In Penang yesterday, I was told that eight out of 10 cases went to trial, but in the US, only one out of 10 does.

The English legal system is a great system but it does not work well with overload. They themselves have realised, like us, that a modern system is needed to cater for the increasing number of cases, he said.

Wallace said it costs between US$400 and US$600 daily to keep one court open in the US, which is a burden on the taxpayers, and that ADR can reduce that burden.

Furthermore, this form of dispute resolution is more of a healing process for the disputants rather than a confrontational one because they resolve the matter in peace.

Less emotional turmoil

Peterson, in attesting that ADR has made a remarkable difference in his court, said lawyers generally favoured the programme over arbitration which already existed for a long time.

ADR permits them to move clients to a settlement. There is less emotional turmoil and it is also substantially low in costs and time.

ADR also provides more solutions to an otherwise seemingly insoluble problem, said Peterson.

He said of the 500 to 600 cases he handles at any one time, he experiences about 97 percent success rate at settlements while slightly more than two percent go to trial.