Tools in Network: an E-Net Approach to Sharing Mediation Competences.

The Outcome

It is usually believed that the "mediation formula" has been applied correctly if all the relevant procedural rules have been complied with. However, it is one thing to verify that mediation worked from the standpoint of the methodology applied to implement the process; it is a totally different thing to assess the results achieved via the process in question - i.e. to assess the outcome of mediation. How can one tell successful mediation?

The fact that the two main parties, i.e. victim and offender, decide to join the mediation process and thereby accept to compare their opposite views of the conflict before a neutral third party that is expected to co-ordinate the "partial, interested recounting of the facts, which nevertheless retain their truthfulness" is proof per se that mediation was successful; actually, it goes to prove that the conflict could be re-located successfully from the criminal context to a neutral forum where the parties could meet and reality as experienced and narrated subjectively - rather than a legally relevant fact - is the focus of attention. The mediation process is one and the same as the narration; it arises from the words spoken by the parties in conflict, indeed from the opportunity afforded to each of them to tell their own story. Prior to the mediation meeting as such, both the victim and the offender are listened to individually via preliminary interviews that are dedicated to each of them, so that each can tell their own story. Thus, if mediation is a process whereby the two parties are enabled to give vent to the emotions underlying their conflict - who is involved in a conflict is ultimately isolated by their own experience, by their own versions of the events - it is easy to grasp how difficult it is to quantify and assess the outcome of mediation. Material reparation of the damage caused is only one among the objectives pursued; forgiveness and/or compensation for the damage caused (in terms of a formal legal obligation) are actually irrelevant in mediation - in any case, they play a secondary role and are in no way preconditions for the successful outcome of the mediation process.

Based on the above considerations, and taking account of the meaning inherent in mediation, one can argue that mediation is "successful" if the parties manage to go beyond the specific situation - in which they are fossilized in their respective roles as "victim" and "offender" - and acknowledge their respective emotions and suffering - whereby the re-elaboration of experiences and, accordingly, the interpretation of the events must be different for each of them. The narration of the event in the input phase is different from the narration of the event in the output phase. Jacqueline Morineau, at the beginning of her book on "The Spirit of Mediation", states that "Our long-term objective consists in fostering a culture of peace worldwide."