Coupling Therapeutic Justice with Professional Mediation for Settlement of Disputes in Sri Lanka.

Abstract

The concept of Therapeutic Justice examines how the legal processes and the behaviour of justice sector actors have a psychological impact on the people. The adversarial judicial system invariably calls for exercise of authority, vigorous advocacy for the vindication of rights and proceeds to jjudgment without understanding the disputants’ perceptions or emotions. This paper argues for conceptualising Therapeutic Justice into mediation as the latter recognizes the human element in conflict and the two schools of thought share similar attributes such as party autonomy and procedural fairness. The Study reviews the evidence from Eleven (11) civil cases litigated in Sri Lanka with its focus on anti-therapeutic impact on the disputants during the pre-litigation, litigation and post litigation stages of each case during the years 2021 to 2023 resulting from partaking in adversarial processes. The findings highlight the need to experiment and adopt private or professional mediation within the legal framework for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) through the lens of therapeutic justice as part of judicial reforms in Sri Lanka and of the corresponding need to set up an independent and vibrant professional culture of mediation.