Lawmaker-cum-lawyer Vong Hin Fai, who heads the Legislative Assembly’s 3rd Standing Committee, said yesterday that if a family dispute has been confirmed to involve domestic violence, mediators could halt the process and draft a report to allow victims to pursue immediate legal action.
The committee held a closed-door meeting yesterday to review the bill – the outline of which was passed during a plenary session in November –after which Vong said during a media briefing that his committee aims to finish the review of the bill today before sending it to another plenary session for its article-by-article review.
According to the bill, parties must undergo mediation before engaging in judicial proceedings, such as cases involving litigated divorces, the exercise of parental rights, the provision of alimonies, and property divisions.
Vong said that about 200 such cases occur each year.
Vong also said that while the committee members generally support the bill’s approach, some have expressed apprehension about the necessity of mandatory mediation, particularly in cases involving domestic violence, where reconciliation may be impossible.
The bill also specifies that the mediators shall be officials from the Social Welfare Bureau (IAS) or registered social workers with relevant professional qualifications, with no monetary compensation for their services. Currently, there are over 1,000 registered social workers in Macau, and the government plans to compile a list of family dispute mediators, ensuring that parties incur no costs for their services, Vong said.
Vong quoted some committee members as saying that they were concerned about the mediators’ limited qualifications, asking about the possibility of including more qualified professionals.
Vong noted that as the bill’s pre-litigation mediation system is a new initiative, the current focus is on carrying out the mediation process on a trial basis with the existing personnel, adding that with around 200 such cases each year, the need for a larger pool of mediators was not deemed necessary at this stage.
Lawmaker-cum-lawyer Vong Hin Fai (left), who chairs the legislature’s 3rd Standing Committee, and the committee’s secretary Leong Sun Iok, pose after the committee’s closed-door meeting reviewing the government’s bill on family disputes mediation yesterday. – Photo: Ginnie Liang
