Practice Insight: Court‐connected mediation in Jordan—Considerations for choosing a mediator

• Published date: 01 May 2023
• Author: Bakr Abdel Fattah Al Serhan,Wesam Faisal Al Shawawreh,Pauline Collins
• Date: 01 May 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21383

PRACTICE INSIGHTS

Practice Insight: Court-connected mediation

in Jordan—Considerations for choosing

a mediator

Bakr Abdel Fattah Al Serhan

1

| Wesam Faisal Al Shawawreh

2

|

Pauline Collins

3

1

College of Law, University of Sharjah,

Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

2

Law School, Mutah University,

Mutah, Jordan

3

School of Law and Justice Australia,

University of Southern Queensland,

Toowoomba, Australia

Correspondence

Pauline Collins, School of Law and

Justice Australia, University of Southern

Queensland, Toowoomba, Australia.

Email: pauline.collins@usq.edu.au

Abstract

A model of court-connected mediation following

Western practice was adopted in Jordan in 2003. Its

success has been limited. This practice insight

addresses the current mediation legislation in Jordan

in relation to civil and commercial disputes. The law

allows the parties three options in choosing a mediator,

one being a judge mediator. This raises important con-

siderations for parties when they are choosing a media-

tor. The practice insight addresses these considerations

with a view to improving party awareness when

exercising their choice of mediator. It also takes the

opportunity to suggest legislative changes to improve

the uptake of mediation.

1|INTRODUCTION

Mediation is deeply rooted in Jordan having existed as a conflict resolution tool in traditional

tribes. Tribe is a term used to signify the belonging to a kinship group (Gregory, 2003). As a gen-

eral rule, every Jordanian citizen, whether Muslim or Orthodox Christian, is considered as

belonging to a tribe. Even the Royal Family, who are believed to have descended from the

Prophet Muhammad, came from the Hashemite clan of the tribe of the Quraysh (Bin

Muhammad, 1999). Each tribe has a male leader, who is chosen from one of the Nobel families

Received: 31 August 2022 Revised: 19 February 2023 Accepted: 6 April 2023

DOI: 10.1002/crq.21383

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits

use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or

adaptations are made.

© 2023 The Authors. Conflict Resolution Quarterly published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.

Conflict Resolution Quarterly. 2023;40:483–492. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/crq 483