The Operational Mechanism And Improvement Of Community Mediation

Community mediation is an important part of the multiple disciplinary resolution mechanism and one of the important ways to ease the contradictions at the grassroots level.This paper begins with the theoretical analysis of community mediation to demonstrate its necessity for resolving grassroots disputes,and it analyzes the current dilemma faced by community mediation based on the research data of A street in Y city of N province,then it puts forward suggestions on community mediation mechanism to make it more efficient for resolving grassroots disputes.This article mainly includes four parts:The first part mainly discusses the necessity of community mediation for resolving grassroots disputes through three aspects.First,the evolution and development process of China's grassroots dispute resolution methods show that "no litigation" has always been an ideal governance state in China's grassroots society.From the patriarchs and insured leaders of traditional society to the village heads of the local society and now to the community mediators,they all undertake the task of grassroots governance to reconciling disputes.From the perspective of historical evolution,mediation has always played an important role in the resolution of grassroots disputes.Second,the formal control methods,such as litigation,have their own problems,such as high cost,lacking of flexibility,and limitations of the law,which makes it difficult to solve the complex and volatile grassroots contradictions.Thirdly,by studying the characteristics of grassroots disputes,we can find that community mediation has advantages in space,method and adaptability when resolving grassroots disputes,therefore it can resolve grassroots contradictions effectively.Hence,research on the operational mechanism and improvement methods of community mediation can provide useful experience for the construction of grassroots social conflict prevention and resolution mechanism in China.The second part takes the community under the jurisdiction of A Street in Y City of N Province as a sample,and analyzes the operation mechanism of community mediation by three steps.The first step is to clarify the institutional settings of community mediation organizations by sorting out three items,which are the hierarchical division of mediation organizations,management,registration,return visit system,procedure norm.The second stepis to understand the staffing of community mediation organizations by comparing employment mechanism,treatment guarantee mechanism and assessment mechanism of mediator in different communities.The third step is to refine the operation mode of community mediation by analyzing data about proportions,changes,mediation success rates of different types of grassroots contradictions and specific mediation cases.The third part mainly analyze the four dilemmas that community mediation faces when resolving grassroots disputes based on the field research.First,the position of community functions is unclear.In practice,the tasks of community mediation organizations are pretty vague,community mediators are also community workers,so it is difficult to keep balance between mediation work and management work which would seriously lower mediation efficiency and success rate.Second,the staffing of the mediation organization is unreasonable.Thanks to a shortage of community mediators' personnel quota and low salary,the general quality of mediators is not high,and it is difficult to meet the requirements of community mediation for knowledge reserve,professional ability and communication skills.Third,the supply of public service is insufficient.There is a big conflict between the limited community services and the awakened rights consciousness of the community residents,which leads to the community mediation at this stage can not meet the multiple interests of the parties.At the same time,the lack of public service supply will make it difficult for community members to trust the community,directly affecting the success rate of community mediation.Fourth,the effectiveness of community mediation is hard to be guaranteed.Because the community mediation agreements do not have rigid enforcement,disputes with large amounts of compensation and complicated legal relationships are often difficult to get actual performance.In addition,due to the generally low law cultivation of our citizens,mediation activities may sacrifice the legitimate interests of some parties in pursuit of reconciliation results.In another word,there may be problems of neglecting the protection of the legitimate rights of the parties in community mediation.The fourth part is to submit suggestions for the real dilemma faced by community mediation.Firstly,it is necessary to subdivide community functions and clarify the content of the work.To be more specific,it is recommended to divide the community functions into management functions and service functions,and to clarify that the core function of community mediation organizations is service rather than management,to make sure community mediation organizations could concentrate on mediation.Secondly,it is alsonecessary to improve remuneration and mediation ability of mediators.The effect of community mediation is closely related to the mediation enthusiasm and ability of community mediators.Therefore,on the one hand,we can optimize the performance evaluation mechanism,improve the mediator's remuneration to mobilize the enthusiasm of the mediator;on the other hand,we should establish a long-term training mechanism and scientific evaluation mechanism for mediators,and encourage different communities to learn from each other to promote the level of mediation.Thirdly,it is suggested to rebuild the trust of citizens and build communities together.The complete trust of community members in community mediation organizations is the cornerstone of community mediation.Therefore the community must regain the trust of residents by improving public services and guiding community residents to participate in community building actively.And because the grass roots disputes are complex,the community could resolve it with the help of professional and public welfare organizations such as trade unions,associations,foundations,etc.Fourthly,it is important to ensure the effectiveness of mediation and improve the docking of complaints.The mediation agreement formed by the community mediation shows the real intentions of the parties.Therefore,it is recommended to give the enforcement power of the community mediation agreement,which must to be performanced directly after formal examination by the people's court.Of course,when dealing with disputes,the mediator must pay attention to balancing the interests of both parties and should not break the legal bottom line for reaching a mediation agreement.Therefore,when the mediation mechanism cannot effectively resolve the dispute,the mediator should promptly hand over the dispute to the formal control methods to achieve effective docking with the public security,courts,complaint divisions,to resolve the dispute properly and avoid intensification of conflicts.Through the joint efforts of different grassroots organizations,effective social governance pattern could be formed and healthy favorable public order could be maintained.