To trust and to love each other: Forms of mediation in contested divorce cases

Contested divorces can involve different forms of mediation leading to different outcomes: it is possible to identify a mediation bringing the couple to the reconciliation with the withdraw of the divorce petition and another one focused to make the parties agree upon some aspects of the divorce (children custody, property issue etc.). Furthermore the mediation can be carried out by People’s committees, by community based organisation, as well as by judges in the courts. All of them can be analysed in the historical, political, social perspective in order to define the contemporary trend on mediation. In the last decades judges’ role as mediators in family disputes has changed due to the socio-economic transformation occurred in China that has brought to the emergence of new values among people. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview on the forms of mediation taking place in contested divorces through the analysis of court documents and judicial adjudications in order to understand how this institution has been reshaped over the years and how it is used by the judicial system in solving family disputes.