A Visit of Mediation Experts from Japan at Bantul Religious Court

pta-yogyakarta.go.id (03/01/12) - Tuesday, December 27, 2011, The Chairman of the High Religious Court of Yogyakarta (PTA Yogyakarta), Drs. H. Ahmad  Syahruddin, SH., MH and the Registrar/ Secretary, Supardjiyanto, SH welcomed the guests from Japanese at Bantul Religious Court. The special guests Prof. Kusano Yoshiro, Prof. Tatsuki Inada are law professors at Law Faculty of Japan Gakushuin University. Accompanying them were Dr. Nagao Satoru, the assistant in several research projects, an interpreter, and a representative of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Indonesia. The guests arrived in Bantul Religious Court at 13:30 pm and were greeted warmly and familiarly by the Chairman of PTA Yogyakarta, along with the officials and members of Bantul Religious Court.

This visit was quite important in relation to the mediation process implementation in Indonesia's judiciary, especially within the religious courts because the guests are also mediation experts in Japan. The visit was expected to be arena of experience exchanging in mediation. Therefore, in this meeting PTA Yogyakarta also presented mediator judges representing five religious courts within its jurisdiction area.

In his welcome  speech, the Chairman of PTA Yogyakarta, Drs. Ahmad Syahruddin, SH., MH hoped the arrival of the guests from Japan who are mediation experts will provide new discourse and improve knowledge for mediator judges in Indonesia, especially they within the religious courts by sharing experiences on mediation. At the end of his speech he urged the mediators in Religious Courts to constantly perform the mediation seriously, not just as a formality nor a routine to obtain the optimal mediation result. 

On the occasion, Prof. Kusano Yoshiro talked about the mediation development in Japan which he considered is quite hard at the beginning, however in line with the endeavor finally the mediation can be accepted by Japanese society. Even today the mediation is not only attempted for domestic or divorce cases, but for other civil cases which are possibly resolved with mediation. He also said that the tendency of Japanese women who consider to be able to live and support themselves with career becomes one of the divorce factors in Japan.

Furthermore it was also told that in Japan, the success of mediation is not only seen from the return of a couple nearly divorced to be harmonious. But the result to peacefully divorce between the two parties is also considered as a successful mediation.

Prof. Kusano Yoshiro also shared his experiences on the success key of mediation in reconciling the nearly-divorced couples by recultivating the feeling of mutually need. If the feeling is grown, it may simply the couple to return without divorce. However, if the factor of divorce case proposed is the presence of a third person or cheating, it will be very difficult to reconcile. The mediator should endeavor to make divorce, as the only way, run peacefully.

The dialogue session at the end of meeting was used well by the audiences who enthusiastically asked the questions either to Prof. Kusano. Yoshiro or to Prof. Tatsuki Inada. On a question about the reward from the institution in Japan to the mediator judges successfully conducting the mediation, emphatically Prof. Kusano Yoshiro answered that they did not receive any rewards except the gratitude from the litigants. But according to him, the gratitude itself is a certain satisfaction for him that makes him continue mediation.

As the souvenir, Prof. Kusano Yoshiro presented a book he wrote for the Chairman of PTA Yogyakarta as well as for the Chairman of Bantul Religious Court. After taking a look around the hearing room and the mediation room of Bantul Religious court, finally around at 15:00 pm, the guests left the Bantul Religious Court and continued their travel.