Revista da EMERJ - V. 22 - N.1 - Janeiro/Março - 2020

15  R. EMERJ, Rio de Janeiro, v. 22, n. 1, p. 11 - 26, Janeiro-Março. 2020  petence. Another essential element of fairness is the opportuni- ty to tell one’s own personal story and sorrow: this step, which covers only a residual part within trial, is considered necessary in the path toward healing and reconciliation, since it grants the possibility to be listened, understood, and pitied. Furthermore, the chance to talk ensures the parties an active role in managing the conflict and their personal situation. Finally, control over the process is another relevant feature that enhances the level of sa- tisfaction over the result of the dispute. According to comparati- ve studies over traditional and alternative ways of dispute reso- lution, non-binding procedures, such as mediation, are the best tools to provide the parties with control over the process and the solution, the chance to talk freely and to participate, and with the likelihood of maintaining or improving a relationship with the adversary party. Beyond facilitating the communication between the par- ties, and thus their relationship, mediation reduces the barriers to justice in more practical terms: this argument constituted a further reason for the introduction of compulsory mediation. With regard to costs, procedural acts are free from any stamp duty, and the total amount of expenses tend to be lower than that for judicial costs; as in trial, in Italy the procedure is free for those who benefit from free legal aid (annual income should be lower than 11.493,82 € ). With relation to time management, instead, the maximum period to settle out-of-court was established at three months ma- ximum, after which the trial could either be completely closed or continue if no settlement had been achieved. Studies proved that the effective duration of mediation ended to be a bit lon- ger than expected (in 2017 the average lenght of mediation with a happy ending was of 129 days). However, expectations over time reduction proved to be true: the average time for mediation has resulted to be about one eighth of the average time for civil proceedings. Certainly, time compression has had a consistent impact on the courts workload. In fact, mediation is assumed to be among the reasons why judicial statistics enjoyed a slight im-