Richard Lord

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan said yes­ter­day the new Me­di­a­tion Board should move to re­solve dis­putes in the vil­lages and oth­er com­mu­ni­ties in T&T. Ram­lo­gan said so at a sim­ple cer­e­mo­ny at his Ca­bildeo Cham­bers of­fice, Port-of-Spain, to present the in­stru­ments of ap­point­ments to the new Board, chaired by Jus­tice Vasheist Kokaram. Ram­lo­gan, in a brief ad­dress, said over the years it was main­ly cor­po­rate en­ti­ties that have suc­cess­ful­ly used the process of me­di­a­tion to re­solve dis­putes. He added: "This con­cept of me­di­a­tion must now move away from that and move in­to the com­mu­ni­ties and the vil­lages and on the ground. Let us take it to the vil­lage coun­cils, let us take it to the tem­ples, the mosques and the church­es."

"Let us get me­di­a­tion go­ing where it re­al­ly mat­ters, where it can touch and save re­al lives and where it can make a dif­fer­ence to the qual­i­ty of life." Ram­lo­gan prais­es for Kokaram, say­ing he was most suit­ed to "steer this me­di­a­tion board in the right di­rec­tion." He said me­di­a­tion was a con­ver­sa­tion­al ap­proach to prob­lem solv­ing. He said the process could re­sult in ben­e­fits to the Ju­di­cia­ry as it could re­lieve the court of some of the bur­dens and some of the stress cre­at­ed by an avalanche of lit­i­ga­tion. "I think it (me­di­a­tion) is a good thing," he said. "We need it at the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el be­cause too many times we have seen do­mes­tic squab­bles and dis­putes re­sult in an arm be­ing chopped off and we have seen con­flicts breed­ing more con­flicts in our so­ci­ety," Ram­lo­gan said.

He said he was con­fi­dent the new board would al­low the sys­tem "to trick­le down to the place that me­di­a­tion is re­al­ly need­ed, that is on the ground in our com­mu­ni­ties." He sug­gest­ed that the new board should "rise to the chal­lenge and em­brace the task of mak­ing me­di­a­tion a way of life and a way of mean­ing­ful dis­course and dis­pute res­o­lu­tion for the man and woman on the ground." He in­sist­ed: " We need me­di­a­tion in the vil­lages, not just in the cham­bers of in­dus­try and com­merce."