| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立暨南國際大學 === 社會政策與社會工作學系 === 95 === In this study, we are going to dig into the conceptions and practices of family mediation by the professionals in justice system. The study is conducted in the family court of Taichung District Court. We not only try to understand current situation of professional family mediation implemented by the family court of Taichung District Court, but also try to find out the cognitions of family mediation by different roles with different professional backgrounds in the family court, including judges, lawyers, and social workers etc. Here are the results:
1. The development history of professional family mediation implemented by Taichung District Court can be divided into six different stages: gestation stage, exploration stage, storming stage, window stage, experiment stage, and rapid growth stage.
2. There are two findings in the conceptions of professional family mediation in this study: (1) Different words may be adopted in various domains. However, in these domains, people share similar definition of family mediation. (2) There are both common understandings and different understandings of family mediation between the justice system and the mediator. Common understandings include professional intervention, consideration of underage children’s best interests, and troubleshooting. However, the judges do not share common ideas and view points with mediator in the aspects of interest priority among the couples and their underage children, mediation style, respect of both parties’ willing towards mediation, and the role of indifferent third party.
3. Selection of an appropriate family mediator can be based on their specific professional backgrounds (education background and professional licenses), professional training, work experiences, and some other factors. We find that social workers, mental consultants, teachers, lawyers, and doctors have good professional background for this job. However, lawyers are limited by its occupational characteristics. People working in justice system have expressed their worries about appointing a lawyer as family mediator by the court.
4. The mediator has to play several roles during the mediation, including the one who controls the entire mediation, an indifferent third party, a teacher, an exponential of children’s interests, a promoter of equality, and a positive talker and enlightener. As a indifferent third party, different mediators may have different thoughts on the possibility of being indifferent during the mediation. As a teacher, the mediators know very little about how the children can deal with the conflicts in the marriage.
5. The study also finds that mediation is not a good choice for cases with severe family violence, psychopath, intemperance behaviors, mental retardation, complicated legal relationship, drug, and people without any mediation willing. Among these cases, people are disputing about the possibility of mediation for cases with family violence. The judge and the mediators in Taichung District Court think that the cases with family violence can be mediated conditionally. Professional ability of mediator and a safe environment are two important elements.
6. Our study finds that the current division pattern of Taichung District Court does not integrate the different professional backgrounds. Just like the situation before implementing professional family mediation, the judge has to handle the case with only legal system knowledge available. This fails to solve some complicated problems.
7. Today, judges and mediators in Taichung District show extreme worries and distrusts for mediation out of court.
8. Since both parties are protagonists in the mediation, we find that it’s not appropriate for the lawyers, family members, and judges to join in the mediation.
9. We find no common mediation model in Taichung District Court. If we look into these teams, we can find that the mediation procedures of Child Welfare League’s team and Cheng Ching Hospital’s team are quite similar to the mandatory mediation model in the U.S.
10. We find that the professional ethic principles of writing reports and keeping secrets are not necessary conflicts. Writing a report is a job of mediator. He has to obey the rule of secrecy. Meanwhile, secrecy also has its limit. It can not limit the understanding of mediation by a judge.
11. We also find that the family mediation program by Taichung District Court is a system without rules. It is limited by four aspects: (1). the court does not share a common conception with the mediator. The mediator is just like an administrative utility to reduce the work load of court. (2) Is this a football game played by basketball players? Meanwhile, these players are playing on a non-standard playground. (3) No detailed regulation is available for the rights and obligations of a mediator. (4) The co-operations between the court and other professional units are not equal. The court always plays a role of big brother, which limits the work of professional mediators.
Key words: family mediation
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