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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Justice, Mr Wong Yan Lung, SC, at a media session after attending the "Mediate First" conference today (May 11):
Secretary for Justice: Today's conference is entitled "Mediate First". As we look back four and a half years since we last held the first mediation conference, a lot has been accomplished in promoting mediation in Hong Kong. We are fortunate to have very concerted efforts from all stakeholders concerned. As I mentioned in my speech earlier, one of the main impetuses for the development of mediation is the introduction of Practice Direction 31 by the Judiciary as part of the Civil Justice Reform. As a result of that reform, nowadays clients and lawyers have to try mediation first. Otherwise, they might run the risk of an adverse cost order. I also mentioned that legal aid is available to cover costs for mediation in legally-aided proceedings.
In the general promotion of mediation, we are still pursuing the three directions. First is the enactment of a mediation ordinance covering important areas such as confidentiality and admissibility of evidence. I hope that the ordinance can be enacted within May, and if not, certainly within the legislative year.
The second one, which is very important to us, is the accreditation issue. We hope to set up a single accreditation body, first of all, by way of an industry-led body, to be a premier accreditation body. Fortunately, the major stakeholders have now reached broad consensus on the establishment of this body. We are now working on the detailed constitution of this body. Hopefully, we can have this single accreditation mechanism in place very soon.
And the third area, which is also very important, is public education and publicity. This is to ensure that the public will understand what mediation is about and the merits of mediation so that it could be more entrenched in Hong Kong - so that as a community we can embrace this dispute resolution mechanism which we believe is very meritorious and universally recognised now as a very preferable way of resolving disputes.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Friday, May 11, 2012
Issued at HKT 16:45
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