The Role that Alternative Dispute Resolution Plays in the English Essay

The Role that Alternative Dispute Resolution Plays in the English Civil Justice System - Essay Example Cumulatively, the main question is whether or not the aims of civil justice report facilitate greater access to justice for disputants via alternative dispute resolution. This study is therefore divided into two parts. The first part of this study analyses alternative dispute resolution and the second part of the paper analyses the extent to which alternative dispute resolution is facilitated by the English civil justice system. Alternative Dispute Resolution Alternative dispute resolution broadly defined implies the use of non-traditional court adjudication of disputes. Invariably this means the use of mediation, conciliation or arbitration as opposed to formal litigation.6 However, the term alternative dispute resolution received academic attention beginning in the 1980s and was used as a frame of reference to an option for resolving civil disputes in the absence of lawyers or legal input. By the end of the decade of the 1980s alternative dispute resolution institutions began to fo rm and gain currency in the UK. By the 1990s, alternative dispute resolution was perceived as an important solution to the evolving litigious culture which created delays, inordinate costs and created a significant problem for ordinary citizens to gain access to civil litigation.7 According to Stipanowich over the last two or more decades, there has been a consistent effort on the part of lawyers, the judiciary, business entities and governments to cooperate on the formation of strategies and policies calculated to provide for the more efficient and less costly management and resolution of conflicts which invariably includes ADR processes.8 Arbitration is often described as an informal and rather simple version of adjudication via the courts in which the formal requirements relative to procedural laws such as discovery are typically waived and instead adopt a more informal process.9 Arbitration derives its strength from the disputant’s agreement to submit to arbitration and t o abide by any award administered by the arbitrator who is usually a tribunal of three independent decision-makers or a single arbitrator.10 It would therefore appear that arbitration, is poised to forego or at the very least reduce the cost and time involved in litigation by removing the procedural complexities and guidelines established for civil litigation and thereby dispensing with the need for the involvement of lawyers. In this regard, arbitration as an alternative dispute resolution, with its emphasis on party autonomy arguably plays a significant role in the reduction of time and cost involved in resolving civil disputes and therefore contributes to facilitating the drive for broadening access to civil