Identify and comment on the advantages and disadvantages of these alternatives compared to a claim through the civil courts.

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1(b)        Identify and comment on the advantages and disadvantages of these alternatives compared to a claim through the civil courts.

Many have argued that the Civil Courts of the U.K. are not an efficient means of implementing justice, therefore, there are Alternative Dispute Resolutions. Mediation, Conciliation, Arbitration and Tribunals are all options that can be chosen instead of Civil Courts, and they are chosen for a number of reasons.

The Civil Courts are avoided by some people because of the delays involved with cases in the County Court averaging 20 months whereas, cases in the High Court average up to 3-4 years. This is a big difference compared to the matter of months needed to finalise a well-run arbitration and also to the swift completion of the Mediation, Conciliation and Tribunals. The fast-track scheme has been developed to tackle this problem, it allows for claims of under £15000 to have a hearing within 30 weeks making it noticeably quicker.

Perhaps the biggest flaw of the Civil Courts is the cost involved, whereby sometimes the costs may actually exceed that of the damages/claim amount awarded and the total cost for both sides’ averages at around 75% of the total compensation in the High Court. Part of this problem is that the courts only give Legal Aid to people under very poor circumstances, which means a lot of people are expected to pay for their defence even though they cannot afford decent defence. Arbitration is also to some extent expensive, as the arbitrator and the venue both have to be paid for, however, this still works out as less than litigating in a Civil Court. Also, Mediation and Tribunals have relatively low costs while Conciliation should have no cost whatsoever.

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Confidentiality is something that can be offered in Mediation, Conciliation and Arbitration cases and in certain circumstances, Tribunals also follow the same programme. Civil Courts however, are free for the public to witness; this may make a lot of people unwilling to take their problems to court.

Another problem with the Civil Courts is that if the action is unsuccessful the problem is unlikely to be resolved and there are no further avenues for you to explore. Whereas, a Mediation or Consolidation meeting that is not successful can be taken to the courts. In some cases of Industrial ...

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