Compulsory mediation of civil disputes and mediation of criminal cases could be introduced in the UK by 2020, a High Court judge has suggested.

Mr Justice Ramsey (pictured) predicted that in 10 years’ time a Mediation Act would make the process compulsory before parties could pursue civil cases in court. But he warned statutory or mandatory mediation was ‘an undesirable direction in which to move’ because ‘the essence of mediation is that it should be voluntary’.

Ramsey said mediation needs to assert itself as a form of dispute resolution in its own right, rather than being seen as ‘the best of a bad bunch’. He suggested it could be an appropriate way to deal with minor criminal offences, as well as complex white-collar crime.

In such cases, he said, mediation could be used to give structure to the process where judges are asked what sentence a defendant might get if they pleaded guilty and to the bargaining by the Crown Prosecution Service over what alternative charges it might accept a plea to. He said: ‘I have a six-month fraud trial with eight defendants starting shortly. That will be a very expensive trial of white-collar crime and is precisely the sort of case that could be mediated in a system where criminal mediation was accepted.’

Ramsey was speaking at the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators’ fourth mediation symposium in London last week.

He also suggested mediation could take over the process of restorative justice, in which defendants meet the victims of their crimes. He said victims often feel marginalised or excluded by the criminal justice system and mediation would bring them and the defendant more into the process.

‘Mediation allows people to be involved. As a process of restorative justice, mediation ticks all the boxes,’ said Ramsey.