ABSTRACT
It has been suggested that an important measure of a civilization is the quality of justice received by its citizens. In the past decade there has been an increasing concern that the traditional adversary system is not adequate to handle effectively all the disputes currently being placed before it. A number of factors have combined to create this concern. The increasing complexities of modern life have increased considerably the number of potential disputes. The capacities of traditional, informal dispute resolution institutions to resolve disputes, such as the family, neighbourhood or church, seem to have diminished. The expansion of the role of government in the lives of its citizens has brought with it an increasing number of controversies between citizen and state. There is a perception too that as a people we have become more litigious. All this has resulted in an increase in litigation, aggravating the problems within the current judicial structure, causing delays from the ensuing backlog of cases, higher costs to the parties and the taxpayer, the bureaucratization of dispute-processing systems and exaggeration of minor disputes as a result of regulations, delays and costs. Furthermore, both court congestion and high cost are used as bargaining tools to extract settlements which may otherwise be unacceptable.
