On the 25th of May Miglė Žukauskaitė-Tatorė, a PhD candidate of the Private Law Department of the Faculty of Law of Vilnius University, will be defending a doctoral dissertation “Problems of the Relationship between Mandatory Mediation in Civil Disputes and the Right to Judicial Protection”. The dissertation was written in the Faculty of Law of Vilnius University and during research stays at Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law (Luxembourg) and Ghent University (Belgium).
This doctoral research is aimed at revealing, through theoretical and practical examples of the application of mandatory mediation models, the relationship between these models and the right to judicial protection and assessing whether restrictions, if established, are proportionate. To reach this aim the concept of mandatory mediation is analysed along with the effects the process of juridification of mediation had on it. The methods of implementation of mandatory mediation models introduced in different countries are also examined in the dissertation. Having established that the introduction of mandatory mediation limits direct access to judicial protection it is then analysed if these limitations are proportionate considering the main reasons for their introduction. Having established in the thesis that mandatory mediation is usually introduced in pursuit of solving certain problems of the court system primarily related to overburdened court dockets and the costs of judicial proceedings, as well as tackling the limited prevalence of mediation, these two goals along with the practical effects of mandatory mediation models are analysed using the criteria of proper purpose, appropriate and necessary measures, and proportionality stricto sensu. The doctoral research can be used as a theoretical background for introduction of mandatory mediation in civil disputes as well as in pursuit of making the already introduced mandatory mediation models more effective.