MANDATORY MEDIATION AND ASSISTED NEGOTIATION IN ITALY – AN ALTERNATIVE TO PROMOTE MEDIATION IN BRAZIL?

Abstract

Italy, like Brazil, is experiencing a crisis in civil justice, mainly due to excessive litigation, which ends up overloading the civil justice system, causing excessive delays in judicial provision. As an alternative to face the crisis, Italy instituted mandatory mediation and assisted negotiation with the clear objective of reducing the backlog of cases and thereby reducing the work of judges. Although much criticized, the obligation to try these methods before filing a lawsuit, on the one hand, did not reach its scope as intended by the legislator, but on the other, it had the power to stimulate knowledge and its use, albeit in a voluntarily. With this, the question we intend to answer is: whether it would be possible to require mandatory mediation as a prior step as a condition of action in Brazil? The objective of this work was to analyze whether the path chosen in Italy with the implementation of mandatory mediation and assisted negotiation would be a viable alternative to be implemented in Brazil which, like Italy, is experiencing a similar crisis of excess access, with unreasonable delay in the process. The methodology used to achieve the objectives of this research was the deductive, inductive and, above all, comparative method. The result found was that the mandatory requirement for mediation in Italy is a viable alternative to be implemented in Brazil, not only as a mean to disseminate knowledge of the method, but also to reduce excessive access to the judiciary for causes that may be resolved by the interested parties themselves.