Ukranian Center for Common Ground:Victim-Offender Mediation Project
The Ukrainian Center for Common Ground, an international NGO promoting cooperative instead of adversarial solutions to conflict resolution, is establishing a restorative justice Victim-Offender Mediation Program within the Ukrainian legal system. This project is currently being introduced in seven regions (Chernivtsi, Crimea, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Luhansk and Sumy) in partnership with the Supreme Court of Ukraine, the Academy of Judges, the Ministry of Justice, and the General Prosecution Academy. As of spring 2008, 20 volunteers have received training as mediators, 12 of whom are ready to teach mediation skills to new recruits. Training includes weekly meetings where participants role-play and analyze real mediation cases to develop the tools they will need to conduct court-mandated mediations. Tangentially, members of the Academy of Judges in Ukraine and judges from all over the country have also been offered half-day workshops on alternative dispute resolution and 5-day trainings in basic mediation skills.
To date, the project has conducted a total of 29 victim-offender mediations, mostly for minor offenses like theft, robbery, house-breaking, banditry, and fraud. Judges refer cases from the court system for mediation in an effort to reduce court case loads and better serve the needs of victims. Ukrainian law, though, complicates the process of referrals because it does not allow the disclosure of contact information and case details with individuals not parties to the case. Each region has therefore set up its own case referral procedures with cooperative justice system officials. All programs also accept non-criminal or non-court referred cases that come to their attention through informal channels in an effort to prevent conflicts before they require judicial intervention. Of 295 cases referred to the victim-offender mediation program, “58% were evaluated as suitable for mediation, 17% of these mediable cases were convened in a mediation meeting, 90% of the meetings resulted in an agreement between the victim and the offender, and 58% of the agreements resulted in payment of material damages to the victims” (Quote taken from the Search for Common Ground website, see below.)
The mediation process requires that offenders admit their guilt and make amends to the victim through either a verbal apology or monetary restitution. All the different regional programs provide in-person preparation for both victims and offenders. Mediation sessions take as long as necessary to insure that all parties are satisfied with the outcome but are typically completed within two to three weeks of the referral. Time flexibility is especially important for juvenile offenders, where mediators intervene not only to solve conflicts between both the offender and the victim but also between the offender and his or her parents. Once mediation is complete, the agreement of the parties is entered into the court record and the case goes back before a judge, who usually treats the mediation agreement as justification for giving the offender a reduced sentence.
Evaluation of the program is ongoing but participants have pointed out that mediation would be more effective if conducted in collaboration with other services like social assistance and psychological counseling. Additionally, program administrators should try and heighten awareness of this victim-offender mediation program so that social service employees can refer cases to them as well. Finally, the Ukrainian government needs to enact national legislation to authorize and regulate victim-offender mediation programs and give them the legitimacy they need to work effectively with justice system professionals
Ukrainian Centre for Common Ground: http://www.sfcg.org/programmes/ukraine/programmes_ukraine.html