Revista da EMERJ - V. 20 - N. 2 - Maio/Agosto - 2018

 R. EMERJ, Rio de Janeiro, v. 20, n. 2, p. 73 - 115, Maio/Agosto 2018  87 Portugal Ursula Who can mediate? In Portugal, in addition to a course in mediation of conflicts, it has been customary to require as a requisite for their attendance, an appropriate academic degree (However, what means “appropri- ate” is not officially defined.) In Portugal, mediators work in different areas such as communitarian, commercial, family, workplace, victim- offender, school, etc. Regarding a liberal professional initiative, there is still no regulation of this area, except for the mediators recognized by the Ministry of Justice to practice in the public mediation systems (Julgados de Paz / Sistemas de Mediação Familiar, Laboral e Penal). So basically anybody can cal himself a mediator . This is not a protected profession. For accreditation in the public system or with the ministry of justice you have to have a university course, be more than 25 years old, no criminal past and speak Portuguese and must have passed a 90 h course Is there a law that defines who can perform mediation? There is a mediation law, which says, that this law regulates all mediations performed in Portugal, but the law does not restrict per- forming mediation in general or defines criteria for being a mediator (The Lei n.º 29/2013, de 19 de abril establishes the general princi- ples applicable to mediation in Portugal, as well as the legal regimes for civil and commercial mediation, mediators and public mediation, regulated by: Ordinance No. 344/2013, of November 27 - Defines the compe- tent service to organize the list of conflict mediators, as well as the re-