{"id":335459,"date":"2019-08-25T13:05:31","date_gmt":"2019-08-25T11:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=335459"},"modified":"2019-08-23T13:44:17","modified_gmt":"2019-08-23T11:44:17","slug":"south-africans-may-soon-be-required-to-consider-mediation-before-heading-to-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/335459\/south-africans-may-soon-be-required-to-consider-mediation-before-heading-to-court\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africans may soon be required to consider mediation before heading to court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Rules Board for Courts of Law has issued a new <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lssa.org.za\/upload\/files\/General\/Rules%20Board%20letter%20Uniform%20Rule%2041A%20December%202018.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">proposal<\/a> <\/strong>that will require South Africans to consider mediation before heading to court.<\/p>\n<p>If mediation has not been considered, the court will be required to manage cases effectively and recommend mediation as a dispute resolution if it deems it appropriate.<\/p>\n<p>PJ Veldhuizen, managing director of Gillan and Veldhuizen and a practising commercial mediator, said that the new proposed rule will result in a much-needed easing-off of pressure on South African courts and legal process and the costs of legal representation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Mediation, which was introduced in South Africa as an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), is a time- and cost-effective means whereby parties to a dispute can appoint a qualified neutral third party to act as mediator to facilitate an agreed settlement,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The mediator facilitates discussions between the parties, assisting them in identifying issues, clarifying priorities, exploring areas of compromise and generating options to resolve the dispute.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Veldhuizen said that the proposed rule, Rule 41A, will require the practising representative attorney to declare before the court that he\/she has advised his\/her client to consider mediation as a means of attempting to resolve the dispute which is the subject of the proposed proceedings.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The rule will require the parties, when issuing summons or application or delivering a plea or answering affidavit, to indicate whether they consider mediation to be possible and to give reasons for their consideration.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Failing to do so could result in penalisation by way of costs orders,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/335093\/should-south-african-employees-always-get-their-jobs-back-after-being-unfairly-dismissed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Should South African employees always get their jobs back after being unfairly dismissed?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Rules Board for Courts of Law has issued a new proposal that will require South Africans to consider mediation before heading to court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":54789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[14251,26],"class_list":["post-335459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-gillan-and-veldhuizen","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335459"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":335511,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335459\/revisions\/335511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}