Society

Arbitration helps relieve courts

By Gao Changxin (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-23 07:21
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SHANGHAI - Zhang Jianguo, who serves as a mediator in Shanghai, has received more than 100 silk banners in 28 years of service.

Zhang, the head of Jiangan district people's mediation office, has helped resolve more than 5,000 disputes till date.

Zhang's office has four full-time mediators who once used to be lawyers or legal workers. They are paid just a little over 1,000 yuan a month by the government.

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But Zhang maintains money is not the reason they do the job, as all of them get handsome pensions. They are mediators because of their "passion to contribute to the society".

"Courts in Shanghai, which are overburdened with the sudden increase in the number of civil cases, have started paying a lot of attention to mediation," said Zhang.

"Mediation is a quicker and more economic way to solve minor civil disputes, which would otherwise take up a lot of time in court."

Zhang said his office has witnessed a significant increase in workload in recent times. "Most of the cases, about 80 percent, are real estate disputes."

And money, he added, is the scourge behind almost all the disputes.

"There are children scrambling for property of their deceased parents, couples fighting over estates after divorce and siblings grappling for relocation money," Zhang said.

"My personal feeling is that the society's level of morality is declining."

On an average, his office mediates seven to eight cases every day, achieving a success rate of nearly "20 percent".

Zhang admits civil mediation is not an easy job.

"There is a famous saying: For a mediator to successfully settle a case, his lips have to be chafed and shoes worn out," he said. "You have to be very diligent and devoted to be a good mediator."

Recalling a recent case, Zhang said a married man with a kid impregnated a migrant worker, who then asked him for 500,000 yuan to terminate the pregnancy.

"She deserved some compensation but not that much. The woman knew that if she gave birth to the child, the man's family would be destroyed and he would be fined for breaking the one-child policy. She thought it was an easy way to blackmail him," Zhang said.

After a thorough investigation, Zhang learned that the girl's family in a rural area of Hubei province had secretly broken the one-child policy, so he told the woman he would report the matter unless she lowered her compensation demand.

"It all worked out in the end. The girl got reasonable compensation and had the kid aborted."