National Centre for Dispute Resolution (NCDR) has been instrumental in resolving various trade and other disputes, besides releasing over US $36.5 million to various parties. The NCDR is playing a role of a mediator between various parties for resolving commercial, civil, foreign investment, family and women-related issues free of cost, and is also involved in a number of social services.
This was stated by LCCI's former president, Ismail Suttar, while speaking on behalf of NCDR. Suttar, who is also chief executive of Hub-Pak Salt Refinery, said that the NCDR would help resolve trade disputes pending for the last several years and thus pave way for the investment in the country. He hoped that hundreds of trade-related disputes pending since long will be resolved with the help of Sindh High Court shortly.
In this regard, he said that the NCDR has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the SHC for promoting and supporting court-referred mediation, besides the NCDR will continue with its initiatives and efforts in institutionalising mediation with the assistance of the court. Elaborating, he said that under the MoU, the SHC will cooperate with NCDR and encourage the judges and staff to do all necessary things, so as to enable the NCDR to carry out its activities.
The SHC shall also apprise judicial officers of the latest mediation techniques through workshop and seminars to be arranged by the NCDR, he said, adding the NCDR will be permitted to hold awareness events on the court premises. He said that NCDR is also the first and only mediation centre in Pakistan which has experts in both the facilitative and transformative styles of mediation.
This MoU signed between the SHC and NCDR is a progressive step towards implementation of the policy which was agreed upon in 2005 among the government of Pakistan, the superior Judiciary and the International Finance Corporation. Moreover, it is also part of the National Judicial Policy to promote the use of mediation as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism in Pakistan so that burden of cases on the judiciary was reduced.