On August 10, at the First Extraordinary Session, the National Assembly discussed in the hall the draft Law on Grassroots Mediation (amended).
At the hall, delegate Huynh Ngoc Liem (National Assembly Delegation of Lam Dong province) said that the special point of grassroots mediation is not only to resolve a dispute but also to maintain a relationship.
Article 25 has allowed mediation in the form of direct, online or combined forms. This regulation is very suitable for current practice.
He gave an example that instead of spending several weeks meeting directly to resolve common alley disputes in one locality, online mediation helps connect distant parties in just a few days.
The technology here helps shorten the distance and resolve conflicts earlier. However, the same example raises another issue.
Accordingly, in the online mediation, one side secretly used another phone to record, then cut a statement and posted it on social networks or sent it to a residential group.
Or behind the screen, a third person is listening to the whole story but the other party is unaware. Or images, voices, information about property, family, and the cause of the dispute are saved and transferred to others. At that time, a mediation that was originally organized to mend relations may become the cause of a new conflict.
From the above analysis, this person said that this is the fundamental difference between direct mediation and mediation in the digital environment.
In a direct meeting in a village or residential group, the mediator can see who is present in the room.But in an online environment, we cannot implicitly know who is behind the screen and where the data will go after the mediation ends" - National Assembly Deputy Huynh Ngoc Liem raised concerns.
Therefore, the delegate proposed that Article 25 should not only stipulate the form of mediation and then hand it all over to the Government for guidance as in the current report on receipt, but should immediately record some minimum principles in the law.
Typically, online mediation must have the consensus of all parties. It is not advisable to turn online forms into an imposed option on people because of technological advantages.
Recording, recording, copying, storing, or providing content in mediation sessions to others must have the consent of the parties, unless otherwise provided by law. At the same time, it must comply with requirements on personal data protection and information security.
Participating in contributing opinions on digital transformation in grassroots reconciliation, delegate Nguyen Dang An (Lang Son National Assembly Delegation) proposed to clearly define the principles and foundations that must be unified, but the methods and roadmap for implementation must be suitable for each locality.
Delegates agreed with the construction of a database information system on mediation at a unified grassroots level nationwide. This is a necessary direction to serve management, statistics, data sharing and gradually reduce manual management methods.
However, according to the delegate, digital transformation in this field needs to especially avoid generating more work for grassroots officials and mediators, and must spend more time entering data, completing forms or processing unnecessary technical requirements.
In particular, online mediation should not be understood as a mandatory model that must be implemented simultaneously. In areas with conditions, this is a very useful method. But in remote and isolated areas, where digital infrastructure and skills are limited, direct mediation must still be a convenient, equal and legally sufficient method, unless the two sides are too geographically distant" - delegate Nguyen Dang An said.
Therefore, the delegate suggested that when detailing regulations, it is necessary to meet 3 requirements: A common platform; minimum, truly necessary data; and a roadmap for application suitable to the conditions of each area so that people can access mediation more easily, mediators work more conveniently, and conflicts are resolved sooner from the community.
