Events & Speeches

The Launch of the Singapore Mediation Centre

16 August 1997

The Judiciary has been and will continue to be supportive of mediation, said the Honourable the Chief Justice at the official launch of the Singapore Mediation Centre ("SMC") on 16 August 1997. Mediation will be here to stay. For the legal profession, he urged lawyers to see themselves as being in the business of providing a whole array of dispute resolution services, including mediation-related services.

The SMC is the flagship mediation centre in Singapore which will provide a comprehensive range of mediation services for civil disputes of all nature. This flagship centre will take the lead in promoting and supporting the mediation movement here. A paradigm shift that is envisioned is mediation being employed as one of the first options in dispute resolution. Litigation will be resorted to only in the minority of cases where mediation is not suitable.

Gracing the SMC launch was the Guest-of-Honour, Minister for Law Professor S Jayakumar. Other guests included Minister of State for Law, Associate Professor Ho Peng Kee, the Honourable Attorney General Chan Sek Keong, all Judges and Judicial Commissioners of the Supreme Court, prominent members of the legal and other professional fraternities. There were also many distinguished representatives from the government departments and other trade bodies.

The launch of the SMC came at the conclusion of a successful pilot project. The SMC has established links with a number of renowned ADR institutions overseas and entered into MOUs with 9 local organisations for the use of the SMC’s services. The Singapore IT Mediation Centre has also been absorbed by the SMC with effect from 16 August 1997.

The speech of the Chief Justice was followed by a certificate presentation ceremony. The Honourable Justice Goh Joon Seng, the Chairman of the SMC presented about 50 certificates to persons who have been trained and hand-picked for accreditation and appointment to the Panel of SMC Mediators. This Panel is a multi-disciplinary one and comprises 6 Senior Counsel and persons of standing in the legal and many other professions and industries. The engineers, accountants, quantity surveyors, bankers, high ranking civil servants, lawyers on the Panel bring with them invaluable expertise from their respective fields.

The SMC is currently working with the Conflict Management Group, a Harvard affiliated Alternative Dispute Resolution ("ADR") institution, LEADR of Australia and CEDR of England to plan for courses to train mediators and participants at mediation and other ADR processes.

Read the speech delivered by the CJ at the launch.