Highlighting mediation as a process of settling disputes out of court has been the biggest achievement of Tonga's first Law Week, according to Tonga's Chief Justice Anthony Ford.

Chief Justice Ford said this morning that after showing a mediation film on Television Tonga nightly during the Law Week, "a lot of the public now know how mediation works, and that in itself has been a great success."

He told a press conference that in order to continue this momentum they had produced 100 videos funded by the World Bank to be distributed to villages and church communities.

He said that the mediation process is a, "Quick, cheap and informal way of settling a dispute. A case that would take three or four days in the Supreme Court would take only a day with the mediation process."

Successful mediation

Since the Mediation Process was introduced on April 12 it has dealt with over 10 cases, and eight have been settled.

Sione Havea Taione, one of the mediators said that for a case to be moved from the Supreme Court to the mediation process, the case has to be a civil case and both parties must agree that they want the case to be settled out of court. The Chief Justice will give his approval then the mediation process proceeds.

Sione gave an example of one of the cases that they had dealt with. A widow leased a tax allotment to a grower, but during the term of the lease the widow died then the hereditary land titleholder came along and told the grower to vacate the land. The grower had cultivated the land and obviously did not want to leave the land. Sione said that this case was satisfactorily settled by the mediation process.

Jury trial

On a different issue with regards to a reported proposal by the President of the Tonga Law Society, Laki Niu for Tonga to do away with jury trials, Chief Justice Anthony Ford said that such a move would require the constitution to be amended.

"If someone feels for a particular reason that it is difficult to get an unbiased jury in Tongatapu, the law provides for the trial to be transferred to Vava'u or Ha'apai or a jury can be obtained from outside Tongatapu. These are the other alternatives rather than the drastic one of changing the Constitution.

"Tonga's Constitution is far ahead of most countries and to think that it was put in place in 1875 is just incredible.

"It is a wonderful document that all Tongans should be proud of. It has survived for a long time now, and this is a very good reason why we don't want to mess with it," he said.