‘COURT’ CONCILIATION PROCEDURES

Abstract

The article is devoted to research and development of the concept of resolving disputes (conflicts) between the parties in the course of court proceedings using extrajudicial mechanisms. Most of the procedural codes in Ukraine and abroad recently include rules for dispute settlement with or without the participation of a judge. The authors, based on the analysis of domestic procedural codes, identify and investigate ‘judicial’ conciliation procedures. All methods of resolving disputes can be conditionally divided into judicial and extrajudicial. Moreover, among the ‘judicial’ methods, it is possible to distinguish methods that require the active participation of a judge (dispute settlement with the participation of a judge), and those that do not require the intervention of a judge at the stage of finding peaceful ways to settle the dispute, and the judge is involved in the reconciliation only at the last stage, and its task actually consists in checking the legality of the terms of settlement of the dispute reached by the parties (acknowledgment of the claim, rejection of the claim). In general, for the qualitative implementation of the rights and protection of the legal interests of the participants in the case, they must have a sufficiently high level of self-organization and self-awareness, which are mandatory conditions for reaching a compromise between the parties and its proper consolidation and further confirmation of its legality by the court. Although in some procedures (for example, when settling a dispute with the participation of a judge), their outcome also depends on the professional qualifications of the judge as a mediator. The authors come to the conclusion that the judicial authorities should be more interested in the dispute settlement procedure by an alternative method, and in the case of an initiative by individuals or legal entities, their proposal should be accepted taking into account the tasks set before the judicial authorities by the state and the legislator. The legislator established a wide range of possibilities for peaceful settlement of the dispute between the parties, further popularization of conciliation procedures and explanatory work, including in court, regarding the effectiveness and feasibility of using such procedures is justified. In the future, this will have positive consequences for building a legal democratic state in Ukraine.