Private justice

Abstract

Alternative Dispute Resolution or A.D.R. refers to all private proceedings that attempt to substitute the process and, thus, the Jurisdiction as a public instance for the resolution of legal disputes. Its importance and promotion, observed both in a sector of the doctrine and certain legal systems, is mainly due to three reasons that are critically analysed by the author in this paper. The first reason relates to the crisis of Justice, especially represented by the excessive slowness and delay in responding to the legal actions submitted in order to require the protection of rights. The second reason refers to the need to substitute the traditional tendency to recourse to litigation or contentious justice for a conciliatory or co-existential justice. And finally, the third reason relates to its use to provide adequate protection to certain rights in conflict, which have always been neglected by the State protection.