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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.
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