Neteisminė mediacija Lietuvos administraciniame procese: koncepcija ir plėtros kryptys

Abstract

This article analyses the concept of the out of court mediation in Lithuanian administrative procedure, which has its own specifics, hence, in this range this method often cannot be applied in its classical form. The following features are attributable to the of the out of court mediation in administrative procedure: the parties have a limited freedom to influence the content of the agreement reached in mediation process, i. e. every arrangement reached during the mediation procedure must correspond to the criteria of legitimacy; the reached arrangements are directed to the public interest, not to the interests or needs of individuals; the participating parties are bound by the subordinate/jurisdiction intercourse; the pluralism of the dispute parties, meaning that the problems solved in the process of mediation relate to interests of undefined quantity of subjects, and all such subjects are usually involved in the mediation process as the concerned parties.
The author of this article argues that the main development trends of the out of court mediation in Lithuanian administrative procedure are administrative disputes mediation and the out of court mediation as an administrative function of Lithuanian public subjects. The major problem of the administrative disputes mediation in Lithuania is incomplete regulation. Pursuant to the laws, only a few Lithuanian public authorities, such as the Chief Administrative Disputes Commission and the Seimas’ Ombudsmen, have the right to apply out of court mediation in order to settle administrative disputes. Nevertheless, the laws of Lithuania do not provide for the rules of the out of court mediation and the rights and obligations of the public authorities, which apply mediation procedure. Therefore, there is a risk of unlawful actions of public authorities, who have a right to act as mediators in the out of court mediation procedure. It should be also noted that the practice of public authorities, which shall apply out of court mediation in consumers disputes as it administrative function, is not the same. For instance, the Central bank of Lithuania settles disputes between consumers and financial market participants via out of court mediation. As statistics of the aforementioned disputes settlement mechanism shows, this mechanism is often used in order to settle disputes between consumers and financial market participants. However, for example, National Commission for Energy Control and Prices, which has a right to settle disputes between parties of energy sector via out of court mediation, has not received a single request to settle disputes via this alternative method. Therefore, the author of this article proposes to set the mandatory out of court mediation in the consumers’ disputes resolution.