Abstract
The emergence of a multi-door courthouse is related with a couple of reasons as follows: First, a multi-door courthouse was originally initiated by the United States government that increasingly became impatient with the pace and cost of protracted litigation clogging the courts. Second, dockets of courts are overcrowded with legal suits, making it difficult for judges to handle those legal suits in time and causing delays in responding to citizens' complaints. Third, litigation is not suitable for the disputant that has an ongoing relationship with the other party. In this case, even if winning is achieved in the short run, it may not be all that was hoped for in the long run. Fourth, international organizations such as the World Bank, UNDP, and Asia Development Bank urge to provide an increased access to women, residents, and the poor in local communities. The generic model of a multi-door courthouse consists of three stages: The first stage includes a center offering intake services, along with an array of dispute resolution services under one roof. At the second stage, the screening unit at the center would diagnose citizen disputes, then refer the disputants to the appropriate door for handling the case. At the third stage, the multi-door courthouse provides diverse kinds of dispute resolution programs such as mediation, arbitration, mediation-arbitration (med-arb), litigation, and early neutral evaluation. This study suggests the extended model of multi-door courthouse comprised of five layers: intake process, diagnosis and door-selection process, neutral-selection process, implementation process of dispute resolution, and process of training and education. One of the major characteristics of extended multi-door courthouse model is the detailed specification of individual department corresponding to each process within a multi-door courthouse. The intake department takes care of the intake process. The screening department plays the role of screening disputes, diagnosing the nature of disputes, and determining a suitable door to handle disputes. The human resources department manages experts through the construction and management of the data base of mediators, arbitrators, and judges. The administration bureau manages the implementation of each process of dispute resolution. The education and training department builds long-term planning to procure neutrals and experts dealing with various kinds of disputes within a multi-door courthouse. For this purpose, it is necessary to establish networks among courts, law schools, and associations of scholars in order to facilitate the supply of manpower in ADR neutrals, as well as judges in the long run. This study also provides six case studies of multi-door courthouses across continents in order to grasp the worldwide picture and wide spread phenomena of multi-door courthouse. For this purpose, the United States and Latin American countries including Argentina and Brazil, Middle Eastern countries, and Southeast Asian countries (such as Malaysia and Myanmar), Australia, and Nigeria were chosen. It was found that three kinds of patterns are discernible during the evolution of a multi-door courthouse model. First, the federal courts of the United States, land and environment court in Australia, and Lagos multi-door courthouse in Nigeria may maintain the prototype of a multi-door courthouse model. Second, the judicial systems in Latin American countries tend to show heterogenous patterns in terms of the adaptation of a multi-door courthouse model to their own environments. Some court systems of Latin American countries including those of Argentina and Brazil resemble the generic model of a multi-door courthouse, while other countries show their distinctive pattern of judicial system and ADR systems. Third, it was found that legal pluralism is prevalent in Middle Eastern countries and Southeast Asian countries. For example, Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia have developed various kinds of dispute resolution methods, such as sulh (mediation), tahkim (arbitration), and med-arb for many centuries, since they have been situated at the state of tribe or clan instead of nation. Accordingly, they have no unified code within the territory. In case of Southeast Asian countries such as Myanmar and Malaysia, they have preserved a strong tradition of customary laws such as Dhammthat in Burma, and Shriah and the Islamic law in Malaysia for a long time. On the other hand, they incorporated a common law system into a secular judicial system in Myanmar and Malaysia during the colonial period. Finally, this article proposes a couple of factors to strengthen or weaken a multi-door courthouse model. The first factor to strengthen a multi-door courthouse model is the maintenance of flexibility and core value of alternative dispute resolution. We also find that fund raising is important to build and maintain the multi-door courthouse model, reflecting the fact that there has been a competition surrounding the allocation of funds within the judicial system.