Justices of the Peace Urged to Participate in Mediation Training

Justices of the Peace (JPs) are encouraged to contact their Custodes to indicate their interest in mediation training being undertaken by the Ministry of Justice.

The 2017 training sessions began on Monday (February 13) at the Ministry’s Constant Spring Road offices in St. Andrew with 25 JPs, and was the first of at least nine to be held across the island this year. A second batch of JPs is scheduled to be trained this Friday (February 17).

Director/Principal at the Justice Training Institute (JTI), Karen Campbell-Basoe, said the goal is to train 50 JPs for the month and February and 500 for the year, who will offer certified mediation services to the citizens of Jamaica.

She explained that the sessions are 40 hours, with each group participating for five days, eight hours per day. There is also a practical component to the training.

Mrs. Campbell-Bascoe explained that once the JPs are assessed as competent based on the requirements under the Dispute Resolution Foundation (DRF), they will be gazetted and later placed on the mediation listing within the parish courts.

“They will be called upon at intervals to assist the courts with mediation matters referred through the courts, or if individuals decide that they want to resolve their dispute through mediation,” she pointed out.

Mrs. Campbell-Bascoe pointed out that the training programme, which was launched on February 2 at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston, seeks to empower JPs “so that they can go in communities and assist citizens to resolve issues that may arise and to resolve them in an amicable way”.

She argued that “when we have more matters being resolved through mediation, then we should see less matters coming to the court, which should result in a reduction of the backlog in the court system.”

The Director/Principal further pointed out that the provision of additional mediators to the system will help to reduce crime.

“The more persons appreciate that they can resolve their matters amicably, then the less violence we should see in our communities, resulting in a better Jamaica,” she said.