Guest pen | The possibilities of mediation should be used more effectively

Of mediation many Finns think of the peace mediation work of Martti Ahtisaari and CMI or the mediation of labor disputes with the help of the national mediator. Fewer people know that criminal matters, various disputes, family matters and custody disputes, commercial disputes, clashes between schoolchildren and young people, workplace disagreements, tensions between neighborhoods and population groups, and environmental disputes are also mediated in Finland.

The Finnish field of mediation and alternative conflict resolution has developed and professionalized strongly in the 21st century with new legislation. The development has its roots in the 1980s, when the mediation of criminal cases reached Finland via Norway. In the background, there was a wider international movement that looked for alternative models of conflict resolution to court proceedings and emphasized that the legalization of conflicts is not always in the interest of the parties.

Mediation the approach challenged the traditional Finnish legal and rule-oriented concept of justice. Instead of sentencing for crimes, they started talking about so-called restorative justice, in which efforts were made to repair the traces of the conflict based on the parties’ own views, so that one was not necessarily tied to the formal provisions of the law. The mediator was not a judge, but an experienced assistant whose task was to ensure that the parties could meet in a safe situation and release the emotions caused by the conflict.

Views were adopted from within critical criminology and legal anthropology, according to which it would often be better to resolve legal disputes within the community, without the state, its authorities and courts. The background was also the experience that legal proceedings did not necessarily resolve communal disputes at all. The victim could avoid and fear the perpetrator of the crime in the future, and the perpetrator carried the stamp of a thug into the future.

Mediation when experiments became permanent practices, there was a debate about whether something of the original communality was lost when mediation was regulated by law. However, mediation organized by the public sector has not been alienated in Finland.

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Practices are not sufficiently known.

The current mediation activity is characterized by a comparatively strong role of the public sector. Alongside statutory criminal mediation, mediation of court disputes and mediation of family matters, there is a diverse set of mediation services provided by active organizations and private companies.

In the Sustima project, which investigated the state and possibilities of Finnish mediation, it was noticed that professionals and experts in different areas of mediation see the benefits of mediation in their work, but feel that the practices and application possibilities of mediation are not sufficiently known. Even though mediation is a well-established part of the concept of law, it is still not seen as an equal form of problem solving alongside the traditional justice administration and administration processes. According to the project’s conclusions, securing mediation resources, expertise and quality assurance requires long-term strategic development. Obstacles are in entrenched operating methods and attitudes, not so much in legislation.

Mediation a more efficient use of the opportunities would contribute to many important goals. These include reducing the human suffering and costs of conflict, lightening the burden on the courts, speeding up the processing of cases, and preserving the cooperation and autonomy of the parties. In addition, mediation has benefits related to the development of social justice and democracy.

New possibilities for mediation open up as the use of power changes from a hierarchical to a network-like and negotiating direction. Mediation is not only about the activities of professionals, but also civic skills, with which we can solve common problems and build an even more harmonious society.

Lasse Peltonen and Kimmo Nuotio

Peltonen is a professor of environmental conflict management and director of the Sustima project, which ended in the spring, at the University of Eastern Finland. Nuotio is a professor of criminal law and director of the Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy at the University of Helsinki.

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