The island̕s Juvenile and Family Court has a policy of encouraging the settling of disputes through alternative means, such as by achieving compromise and introducing methods of negotiation in civil court cases.
The Office of the Judiciary, has set out a strategic plan for 2014-2017 in which the 5th strategy focuses on instituting a foreign language cooperation center. Nowadays, more and more foreigners have become intermediaries in negotiations and efforts at compromise, in cases involving a legal dispute.
It is therefore essential to find knowledgeable and professional foreign language specialists to help in the negotiating process. Such an individual does not receive any pay and must already have undertaken a training session in how to assist the parties to a dispute and their families, including foreign plaintiffs.
Today, the juvenile and family court has a total of eight foreign language specialists in French, English, Russian, German and Chinese. In the future they plan to increase the number of foreign language specialists as a service to the people, and also to have a sufficient number of specialists to assist in cases involving foreign plaintiffs.
The move is aimed at improving the ability of foreign language specialists to be fully proficient in the negotiation process, ahead of the launch of the Asean community, and also to enable the Thai system to become more competitive with other countries.