Up to 75% of industrial court cases have been solved by the Human Resource Ministry this year through the newly implemented arbitration system.

According to the HR Minister, Datuk Dr. S Subramaniam, statistics show that only 512 cases were referred to the Industrial Court this year, compared to last year’s figure which reached 3,200 cases.

The new arbitration process and system has also helped to reduce time and cost, and ensured speedier delivery of justice settlement. In the recent years, backlog cases have been haunting many different courts in Malaysia and this resulted in hardship and inconvenience to the parties disputing their cases.

Arbitration refers to the process of appointing an independent middleman agreed by two parties in dispute to settle the differences and come out with a solution. Through arbitration, a case would not have to be referred to the Industrial Court, and save time for all parties. Formulated by the Industrial Relations Department, the arbitration process was implemented since early of 2008, and was expected to cut the number of backlog cases by half before the year ends.