Mediation Activity With UCLF Conducted Between October And November

Uganda Christian Lawyers Fraternity (UCLF) has had a number of projects where its has engaged students of Uganda Christian University (UCU), faculty of law. The work of UCLF involves litigation wherein it represents people in court, it does mass sensitizations of communities in matters concerning but not limited to of succession, land matters, family matters.  It also provides counseling, legal education, job training.

Mediation Session at the faculty of law

Last but not least, UCLF strengthens justice systems by identifying gaps in the system which prevents protection for the poor and then works with the police, prosecutors, courts and other stakeholders to address these complex challenges.

This project involved 4^th year law students through a mediation activity between the months of October and November conducted within the university premises, at the faculty boardroom.

Aims and objectives of the project.

This project had its own fundamental aims and objectives that they wanted to achieve at least within the time they had allocated to the project and such objectives among many others include; (1) To help ensure amicable resolution of disputes, and (2) To improve students’ engagement in the practical aspects of the law.

Students’ involvement

The students were involved in the following;

Taking down records of the mediation

We were involved in the taking of records during the mediation session. We write down the views of the parties that we would then hand over to the chief mediator to assess our progress.

Helping explain to the parties the actual position of the other party.

Sometimes during the mediation there would be flaring of tempers and misunderstanding of either party’s position we came in to bridge the gap between the gap. This was even made more possible because elders did not want to misconduct themselves before us the young.

Analyzing documents brought by either parties to the mediation

This involved looking at birth certificates in some mediations, land titles and documents showing existence of contracts.

All these and others were done with the help of the chief mediator counsel Mukiibi Joshua.

The activities we engaged in during the project

We took part in active engagement of the mediation process so as to reach amicable resolution of disputes between the parties. It involved us listening to the differing sides to understand their sides of the story, their proposals and seeing to it that there is fair consideration of alternatives.

Some of the cases we handled are listed below,

Mediation took place on the following days from 9 am in the morning to 1 P.M. The dates include; 12^th October, 25th October, 1^st November, 8^th November, 26^th November 2017

1.    The parties in our first case disputed over a piece of land in which the plaintiff’s claim was that part of her land extended to the defendant’s land. The plaintiff wherefore claimed part of that land that extended into the defendant’s land as rightfully belonging to her. This matter had been heard before but never concluded.

2. In our second case, the parties had a disagreement about unpaid sums for constructions that were made by the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs sued the defendant for the recovery of about shs. 4.5 Million that the defendant refused to pay. The defendant’s case was that that the outstanding sum was because the the plaintiffs had done sub-standard work therefore got someone else to complete the construction.

Counsel for the Defendant at the start of the mediation stated that the defendant was willing to offer one million to settle the matter but the offer was rejected by the plaintiffs.

This matter was has been heard since the 1^st of November, and there have been subsequent adjournments from our last hearing.

3. The matter we handled was a land dispute where the plaintiff had a claim that the defendants breached an oral contract which the defendants deny pertaining land comprised in a plot in Kyaggwe. It was orally agreed that the defendants take one acre of the plaintiff’s Kibanja as consideration for their mailo interest in 0.70 acres. Later on the defendants were no longer interested in a balance of the purchase price but wanted a share of his Kibanja in lieu of their mailo interest.

The defendants processed the certificate for 0.70 acres and handed it over to the plaintiff but have ignored to execute transfer forms in favour of the plaintiff.

Therefore plaintiff sought an order for specific performance executing transfer forms for the suit land.

Results realized

Parties shake hands after the resolution of the dispute

In one of the cases, there was an amicable resolution of the dispute, the parties got to an agreement and a consent document was to be drafted by one of the lawyers and signed by the parties.

Although the defendant had initially wanted twenty million, the plaintiff offered to pay nine million Uganda shillings which the defendant agreed to after negotiation. Instead of giving up land the plaintiff offered to give money.

It was also agreed that the aforesaid sum would be a period of two months that is by the 12^th December 2017. This was to give assurance that prompt steps would be taken to effectuate the agreement arrived at.

In the case involving the claim for construction, Counsel for the defendant was given a report in respect of the constructions to go and read through so as to clearly understand the plaintiff’s position and why according to them one million proposal was not viable.

This matter was heard on 8^th November 2017.

Observations and Lessons Learnt while on this project.

Ø  Each side must be willing to lose something in order to gain something but ultimately the decision reached is a win-win situation.

Ø  It is important to aim at resolution of the dispute therefore parties should disregard ego so as to properly aim at resolution of the dispute. This was portrayed in parties being willing to listen to the other party.

Ø  It is important to hear from the parties themselves because the matter in dispute affects them. 

Ø  Parties should keep as friends even after the dispute. Some of them in the matters we handled were seen shaking hands.

Ø  When a particular issue has been resolved, one party should not take the other party back to already concluded issue because of the risk of taking the negotiation back to zero hence watering down the resolution/ steps so far reached or agreed upon.

Ø  We also learnt the actual practice of Mediation for there was a mediation when counsel gave us a task to handle the matter in his absenture. It was a great learning experience.

Ø  Notable to mention is the abilities of the mediator in trying to guide the parties to thinking in a certain direction and putting on table alternatives. w learnt that you can move the parties to look at the dispute in a certain angle but of course not deciding for them but give alternatives that they could reflect through.

Ø  It is important to aim at resolution of the dispute therefore parties should disregard ego so as to properly aim at resolution of the dispute. This was portrayed in parties being willing to listen to the other party.

Ø  It is important for both parties to be around, that is plaintiff and defendant in order to reach out on a binding resolution.

Ø  In mediation the law is not based on so much but rather every ruling or judgment is made basing  upon what the parties under mediation have agreed upon,  and both parties lose and win 50 by 50 irrespective of who is most grieved, unless one party agrees to lose completely.

Ø  Personal service of mediation hearing notices is fundamental to enable the party to come and explain his side of the story.

Some emerging Issues during the mediation.

1.    There was difficulty in parties feeling they were losing out in accepting to settle for a proposal different from one they had in mind.

2.    The parties in some of the cases for mediation were somewhat provocative to the defendant, tempers somehow flared.

3.    The chief mediator was however able to get the parties get back to the main subject for discussion.

4.    Some parties do not want to listen to what the mediator or anyone else has to say, they keep interrupting whoever is speaking.

5.    Some parties do not want to come to an amicable conclusion. They believe they must win the whole 100%

6.    Some parties could get annoyed owing to the fact that the other party hasn’t appeared for the mediation, and because of that, they submitted a lot of wording which led to somewhat prolonged mediations. This happened in the one we handled by ourselves.

CHALLENGES FACED

Like any activity challenges one of the challenges was the fact that some parties could not show up that is either the plaintiffs or the defendant. This could slow down the mediations as they couldn’t come to a conclusive resolution in absence of the other party.

RECOMMENDATIONS

We recommend that projects are started early so that they finished as early as possible. This is considering the fact that our last mediation was close to examination time.

CONCLUSION

We extend our sincere gratitude to our lecturer Ms Achieng Miriam, our Tutor Luleti Jonan and Uganda Christian University at large for giving us an opportunity to have such a great learning experience. It wasn’t easy at the start, just like any other activity may seem at the beginning, but in the course of it and also by the end of it, we realized that it is something worthwhile, a skill we had to attain before completing law school, and it has helped us to understand that much as we have studied the law, we may not have to use it everywhere as some issues simply need thinking outside the box just like this mediation. We humbly appreciate, and we are looking forward to constant practice of mediation to master the art and skill of it.

This activity was conducted by Kitamirike Pius, Nyasuna Charlotte, Tendo Ida Kyoyagala  Britah under the guidance and supervision of Joshua Mukiibi from UCLF