Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - The City of Puerto Vallarta recently signed an agreement with the Jalisco State Institute for Alternative Justice, which authorized the municipality to provide citizens with an alternative method for resolving certain legal disputes without intervention from the courts, except for enforcement.

This alternative method for non-adversarial dispute resolution involves one or more arbitrators who cannot propose solution but are there only to facilitate communication between the conflicting parties so that they can come to a mutually agreeable solution and resolve the dispute, in whole or in part, before a municipal judge.

Among the conflicts that may be addressed are family problems such as divorce, child support, and intervention, and commercial disputes such as promissory notes, bills of exchange, as well as neighborhood, administrative and labor disputes, among other legal matters.

It should be pointed out that under the March 6, 2008 amendment to Articles 17 and 18 of the Constitution, the state laws provide for alternative means of dispute resolution, therefore, the purpose of this agreement is to inform the people of Vallarta about this alternative means of dispute resolution, which evens out the social order.

The advantages of this method are that it creates a flexible framework for conflict resolution, provides confidentiality throughout the procedure, and restores the relationship between the parties while avoiding confrontation.