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The real problem in this case, said CJ Chan, was not with any flaw in the process of court mediation but with the lawyers involved. Mr Lock was originally awarded $187.50 in compensation and $1,000 in costs by the Primary Dispute Resolution Centre in the Subordinate Courts, in a process in which district judges take on the role of mediators. But Mr Madan Assomull, the lawyer for the insurer, NTUC Income, took the case to the High Court, after Mr Lock's lawyer took legal steps to make the insurer pay up. Mr Assomull argued that the centre was not a court of law and therefore a judge acting as a mediator has no judicial powers. Justice Lai Siu Chiu agreed and held that an order made by a judge during such mediation was not enforceable. This threw into doubt whether such settlements held any legal weight. Mr Lock appealed and changed lawyers. In October, the three-judge Court of Appeal reversed the High Court decision. In the judgment, CJ Chan said that Mr Assomull had posed the wrong questions of law, resulting in both counsel making wrong arguments to the judge, who then came to the inevitable conclusion. The correct question, said CJ Chan, was whether the mediation process 'contemplated that the terms of a court-mediated settlement would be embodied in an order of court'. Had this been asked, he said, the answer would have been 'yes'. In analysing how the case became a mess, CJ Chan criticised Mr Lock's lawyer, Mr Andrew Hanam, for being hasty in enforcing the court order without giving the other side a reasonable time to pay up. This 'unreasonable conduct', he said, was matched by Mr Assomull's quibbling over a sum of $60.35 in the calculation of expenses and taking unnecessary court action to challenge Mr Hanam. CJ Chan suggested that once settlement is reached, a reasonable time for payment should be stipulated so that the losing party cannot delay payment.
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