Namibia's judiciary has partnered with the United States Pepperdine University to train judges, lawyers, and mediators on strengthening capacity for the implementation of plea bargaining in the criminal justice system and to expand knowledge and skills in commercial mediation for civil matters. 

 A team from Pepperdine University in California is in Namibia this week for a special training programme on Alternative Dispute Resolution.

ADR helps people solve legal problems through mediation instead of long and expensive court cases.

Danny de Walt, Chief of Staff at Pepperdine University, Southern California, said ADR in Namibia has a vision for these kinds of reforms within the judiciary so that it can be an efficient judiciary and create access to justice for everybody. 

"And so over that year and a half, we have built a relationship and a friendship and a trust level where he invited us to come to do what we are calling an ADR week. So we're here all week long. The first two days of this programme are the commercial, foundations and commercial mediation training that's happening today and tomorrow, where it is training mediators to resolve cases on the civil side of cases where contracts are broken and that sort of thing."

He said in the United States, more than 95 percent of civil cases are solved through mediation, and Namibia can also benefit from the same system.

The training has two parts, that is, civil cases and plea bargaining to reduce court delays and overcrowded prisons.

The programme is part of the Africa Chief Justices ADR Forum, where about 15 African countries are working together to improve access to justice.