Mediator Professional Day Celebrated in Georgia

On December 14, 2019, the Georgian Association of Mediators, a legal entity under public law, was established for the first time in Georgia. Its presentation took place on February 19, 2020 at the Rooms Hotel. The Ambassador of the European Union to Georgia, Carl Hartzell, and the Permanent Representative of the United Nations Development Program in Georgia, Louise Winton, congratulated the public on the official launch of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanism. December 14 has since been declared the Professional Day of the Mediator, and this week, for the first time in Georgia, Mediation Week was celebrated, with various types of interesting events dedicated to the representatives of the profession.

GEORGIA TODAY spoke to the Chairman of the Georgian Mediators Association, Irakli Kandashvili.

How would you evaluate Georgia’s first year of mediation?

Mediation is a new word in the Georgian reality. It’s a truly unprecedented reform of the last decade, which allows the parties to the dispute to resolve the conflict themselves. The year 2020 was full of challenges for the newly established association and profession, but we can confidently say that Georgian mediators coped with all the difficulties with dignity, and we were able to take a number of effective steps in this short period. And all the steps taken during the year were aimed at the development and future of the profession.

What would you single out in the implemented activities?

The simultaneous introduction of a new profession and its institutional recognition requires the solid infrastructural arrangement of the organization, as well as increasing public awareness and gaining credibility. We took equally effective steps in this direction during 2020, in particular, Georgian mediators already have a working environment in the form of an office. We’ve been able to develop European standards for entering the profession with the involvement of foreign experts, which builds public confidence in the qualifications of those in the profession, as well as the European Code of Professional Ethics and Disciplinary Rules. We agreed on the obligation of annual professional development training courses for mediators, therefore, the public knows that they are meeting mediators whose knowledge is based on high professional standards, who are trained annually and whose activities are based on ethical standards. We also introduced a platform for online remote production of mediation, which was an effective step in the development of the profession in time and space against the background of the global pandemic.

Increasing awareness of mediation in society is a priority for the Association, and in this direction a Memorandum of Cooperation was signed in 2020 with representatives of various public and private sectors, with the support of which the mediation development and establishment process in Georgia will continue successfully. Among them, our priority is to introduce mediation as an alternative dispute mechanism in secondary and higher education, for which we have a specific action plan, which we will consistently implement in 2021.

What characterizes mediation? What distinguishes it from other dispute resolution mechanisms?

Mediation is the only alternative dispute resolution mechanism that allows the parties, taking each other into account, to be able to reach and reach a mutually beneficial agreement. With the development of mediation, a culture of rational dialogue and social peace has been introduced in Georgia.

I would like to use your newspaper to congratulate each mediator on this professional day and wish them professional success and development! Remember that behind us stands the good name, credibility and collective reputation of the profession, and our professional activity today is tomorrow the day of the mediator profession!