Court annexed mediation service in divorce cases: The case of four Federal courts Addis Ababa Ethiopia
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Date
2017-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The study has made an effort to describe the purpose of court annexed mediation service and the view of clients’, judges’ and professional mediators towards the current ongoing court annexed divorce mediation services together with the challenges of the practice. The study has also described the service delivery of mediation. For this effort a qualitative descriptive method with case study method have been employed. Professional divorce mediators were key-informants of the study, family bench judges and couples who were using the mediation service by court order have been participant of the study. In-depth interview, observation and document reviews were utilized to collect data. Thematic analysis was used to analysis the data that has been collected from field. The findings include the following points. The main purpose of court annexed mediation service is to promote the interest of children and also to save the marriage from breaking. Professional mediators use different techniques based on the case when they are delivering the service, but use common steps. Clients’, judges’ and professional mediator have positive perspectives towards court annexed mediation service, but some participants of the study have a negative perspective. Lack of qualified mediators, knowledge gab from judges about the importance of mediation and unwillingness of couples to participate in the mediation were some of the challenges that were identified in the research. Trainings to judges and mediators in order to expand the services, encouraging different organizations that give psychological and social support for couples in conflict in order to help families in a better way have been indicated in the research
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court annexed divorce mediation