Let's review where the Mediation/Arbitration system currently stands
in practice:
*The genuine custom for mediation is somewhere between zero and zip.
*Mediation is requested as a method of trolling. So far only
once successfully.
*Mediation is requested and once it starts, one or both of the
disputants will insist on behaving as if it were arbitration.
(This has happened more than once, but which cases, I will not
disclose)
*Once the Arbitration Committee set itself up, it immediately dropped
even the pretense at arbitration and constituted itself as a panel of
grievance hearings with independent power of adjudication.
Where do we go from here?
Well, the first thing to acknowledge is that this how it was always
going to go, no matter what we might have wished. Reality is a harsh
mistress.
The only logical thing to do is to rename the Arbitration Committee
into something more close to what their actual role is, and rename
the Mediation Committee into the Arbitration Committee, and give it
live ammunition. What do I mean with live ammunition? I honestly
don't know! Anything the current "socalled" Arbitration Committee can
bear to part with...
J-V Heiskanen (Formerly Cimon Avaro on a pogostick - RIP)