Mediation is becoming ever more important in French law. For a long time, parties have been able to agree to mediate to avoid expensive and long legal proceedings. Recent reforms have extended the scope of mediation. The courts can ask parties to try and mediate, and in some areas of law, for instance disputes about less than € 5000, mediation has even become a prerequisite for being able to file a case. Whilst mediation is thus playing an important role in everyday disputes, national regulation for mediators is lagging behind. There are no thorough universal standards for mediators and there is no central disciplinary board, even though mediators’ organizations have been creating such professional rules and institutions. It is likely the advent of a mandatory attempt at mediation will lead the French legislator to adopt more universal rules for mediation.

This is a letter written by Brigitte Chin-A-Fat to the late Peter Hoefnagels, who was one of the Dutch pioneers in the field of divorce mediation and a professor of criminology and family law at Erasmus University Rotterdam. In 1997, TMD published an article from his hand in which he wrote how he had become inspired by the potential of divorce mediation and about his (first) experiences with this ‘new’ mode of dispute resolution in family disputes. The original article by Peter Hoefnagels, dating from 1997, is reproduced in 2021 in TMD in view of its relevance today and precedes the letter by Brigitte Chin-A-Fat.
Hoefnagels invented the so-called ‘divorce announcement’ and introduced psychology to the legal world of divorce and family mediation. Anno 2021, there are many (legal) developments which are bound to have an impact on the reform of Dutch divorce procedure.
The Dutch government has set up pilot projects experimenting with inter alia a ‘joint access’ to the family court. Many of these developments are in line with Hoefnagels’ suggestions to avoid harm being inflicted on the ex-spouses and notably their children to the largest extent possible. The author discusses some of the current pilot projects and connects the rationale underlying these experiments to Hoefnagels’ ideas as presented 25 years ago. She also looks into the future, notably which changes are likely to occur in the next 25 years in the field of divorce mediation.

Pursuant to Article 1727, § 2, 5 of the Belgian Judicial Code, the federal mediation commission, which manages the mediation process in Belgium, must draw up a code of ethics. After drawing up a code of conduct in 2007, she recently developed a new code of ethics on 16 December 2020. The main lines of this code of ethics are discussed in this contribution.

In 1976 the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, about corporate social responsibility and sustainability, were carried. To implement the guidelines national contact points inform people and enterprises, and mediate in case of a complaint. This article describes the structure, procedure and role of the Dutch and Belgian National Contact Points.

Luc Vanheeswijck summarizes the current position of tax mediation in Belgium and outlines the differences between the Belgian and Dutch mediation method in fiscal matters. He also outlines the differences between mediation in tax matters and ‘classic’ mediation. He concludes that Belgian tax mediation is not mediation as is commonly understood. The article closes on a description of the results of de ‘Fiscale Bemiddelingsdienst’ (the Fiscal Mediation Service).

Every mediator has to act independently and impartially. These are core values of mediation. However, what if a mediator tries to enrich himself? The aim of this contribution is to shed light on some correction mechanisms under the Belgian law of obligations, focusing on the latest developments in the case law of the Belgian Supreme Court.

The Family Justice Centers are an international model where victims of domestic violence and child abuse can find all help needed under one roof. The FJCs are a collaboration of police, justice, welfare, help centers and authorities. The main target is empowering survivors of violence.
The development of the FJC-model is situated in an evolution of the approach of these forms of violence, starting with the recognition of violence against women and child abuse towards a multidisciplinary and collaborative model starting from the needs of survivors of violence. The FJC-model is explained from a field worker point of view and further developments and expected evolutions are mentioned.

This contribution examines how, when establishing the new Belgian legislation on the promotion of ADR, a delicate balance was sought between proponents and opponents of mandatory mediation. The Belgian government was in favour of compulsory mediation, but the Council of State, the High Council of Justice, members of parliament from the majority and the opposition, and representatives of professional organizations were opposed to it. A delicate compromise was found whereby the judge can impose a mediation, but if both sides are opposed to it, a mandatory mediation attempt is excluded.

Care providers establish often long term relationships with their clients. It is of paramount importance that the threshold for a complaint or dispute resolution is preferably low. Ideally this is not a ‘mini-trial’ in which care provider and client are opposed against each other, but a constructive dialogue at a round table guided by a skillful complaints officer. This is what has been introduced by the Healthcare Quality, Complaints and Disputes Act (the Wkkgz).
The new complaint system introduced with the Wkkgz applies to care covered by the Chronic Care Act (WLZ), the Healthcare Insurance Act (ZVW) and optionally can also apply to care based on the Social Support Act (WMO 2015).
In my opinion it is a missed opportunity that the legislator has not introduced a similar complaint procedure in the Youth Act, but instead has chosen the ‘mini-trial’ option here. Moreover, it is also confusing for care providers and clients to follow different complaints systems next to each other.
Finally, in psychiatric care where decisions of care providers can interfere with the right to self-determination there is a separate complaint procedure with a role for the Family Court. For all other run-of-the mill issues also in the psychiatric care the Wkkgz complaint procedure applies.

This article is about the legal position (labor law) of employees in Dutch schools on a religious basis. Although the normal labor law is applicable in this situation, there are also some divergent regulations. Besides some history and background information, this article discusses some important recent developments in the involved commissions and the topics they can decide about. At last this article is about the legal status of the decisions of the commissions. Are they binding or not?

Taking the recent European Commission’s Report on the application of Mediation Directive 2008/52/EC as a starting point, the authors set out to reconstruct the pattern of ADR/mediation activities undertaken by the EU and the Council of Europe over the past 40 years. The authors conclude that the European initiatives have been conducive to a broadening and deepening of the ADR debate. Remarkable shifts can be observed in the emphasis placed by the European agencies during this period, notably a shift from emancipatory to efficiency-based arguments. The inherent coupling of private mediation and public adjudication entails risks however for each of these distinct conflict resolution strategies. The authors call for advanced research designs to generate the data needed for a genuine evidence-based policy in this domain.

In this article Bie Vanseveren and Inge Vanfraechem outline and discuss the practice of a Hergo with juveniles in Belgium.

The author discusses the details of the new Belgian statute on class actions. An intriguing part of the new legislation is that friendly negotiations between the disputing parties are strongly encouraged, yet the intervention of a professional mediator is wholly absent from the law. This is surprising, as the author emphasizes, in view of the procedural safeguards that mediation entails, safeguards that could also be of use in mass litigation.

In this article the authors compare Belgian and Dutch (draft) regulation of mass damage claims, and notably the prominent place reserved for the collective amicable settlement of such claims. Though collective action for the recovery of damage is still not possible in the Netherlands, Dutch law does provide for the possibility of the court endorsing collectively agreed settlements, since 2005. One of most notorious settlements, i.e. the Dexia case, is discussed, illustrating how individual victims may retain their standing to sue in court, although in such cases the courts show a tendency to cling to the terms of the collective settlement just the same (‘reflex effect or shadow of the settlement’). Mediation in brokering such high profile settlements does not necessarily follow the vested principles of mediation in ‘regular’ one to one disputes.