How much does it cost, doctor?

Mediation is derived from the Latin word "mediare", meaning to be in the middle, halfway. Its basis is that a third, independent person, the so-called mediator, which becomes an intermediary for peaceful, compromise solutions to disputed issues. The condition is that the mediator must be impartial, he cannot be a person associated with one of the parties to the dispute, because then the mediator would unfairly influence the other party and could, for example, force it to accept as a compromise a solution that would be disadvantageous for it.

So it's only dry theory. However, in our story it ended like this - How much, how much, how much?!

After a contentious January 2021 court hearing (in details written here) the Radio ГA / ГA, together with their proposed "independent mediator", they decided to show us their concept of the true meaning of the word "to be in the middle".

Before we were directed in this way, on 10.1.2021 the lawyer #MV ("Mgr. Prasátko") delivered to us a response from Mrs. Colombo (all the way from "Washington") to our reconciliation proposals.

As it has become always as the rule in the future – apart from the raised middle finger, as "Cimrman" said in his comedy, they gave us nothing at all.

For those of you who can (not) read between the lines, we summarise the main ideas of their message:

• Your proposals are unacceptable to us because it would cost a lot of money (although we are happy to contribute to the payment of our contract law firm's invoices from the unlimited resources of the American taxpayer)

• We still do not recognise your claim for discrimination as a separate claim, as we have said many times and even the "independent" judge #JH(Dr. Hustá) told you so too (and it is your fault that you pay court fees and deduct her time, and therefore we do not accept your proposals for reconciliation, even in the form of your proposed is apology only)

• Because we know that you have been employed for a year, all this time you have been doing work, paying bills, trying to meet your financial obligations and survive without collecting trash, so it is "unfair" to ask us for any more money

• We want to come to an agreement (or "any promise to me won't make me sad")

• We are ready to "give you something", but we won't tell you how much, so offer again, we will ask in distant "Washington" and write back (How much, how much, how much?!)

• We want to attend the meeting before the mediator and actively participate in it, but according to our rules (which we already specified at the last court hearing on 5/1/2021, i.e. it will not be in Slovakia and it will not be your sister, even if it is registered mediator)

Even though we agreed at the court meeting on 5/1/2021 about the conditions of a possible meditation, i.e. that it will take place in halfway between Prague and Slovakia and it was even in the protocol of this meeting, the "independent" judge #JH( "Dr. Hustá") again decided differently and in favour of the defendant. Understandably, she did not accept our proposals and decided on a mediator "with whom she has excellent experiences and who is successful" and exactly according to her statement "No, I already have a mediator here ready for you! Yeah? So…”

So let us recall the sharp exchange of words regarding mediation between the two parties as they took place on that January day.

​Lawyer	​If I can say something about that.
​Judge	You can.
​​Lawyer	​I already informed the court in the previous proceedings that we are willing to go to possible mediation proceedings, possibly. Unfortunately, to this day, and now I don't want to talk about whether the plaintiff, as he imagined, any solution to the matter. Neither for Radio nor for Mr. XXXX, the trial is not a pleasant thing, and from this point of view we are inclined to the fact that mediation could take place. We think that it is not appropriate for the representative of Mr. XXXX to be the mediator here, even if she is rated as a mediator...
​Judge	No, definitely not!
​​Lawyer	At the same time, as I follow up on our discussion outside the door of this courtroom, we do not think that it would be appropriate for this mediator to be any mediator from the Slovak Republic, because that would be a conflict of interest.
​Judge	No, I already have a mediator here for you! Yeah? So...
​​Lawyer	Now from this point of view, I think that mediation could help in this matter, because the situation developed in such a way that there was Mr. XXXX's statement and subsequently there was an objection to the state of discrimination, which are very surprising and which do not correspond to how it has been treated so far. This means that the management of the Radio is also inclined towards the mediation procedure and is willing to participate in it, if it is possible to find some agreement. But in order for there to be some kind of agreement, from my point of view the mediator must find out what Mr. XXXX's position is from the point of view of his ideas regarding a possible settlement in the whole matter, and of course the Radio can react to that in some way.
​Judge	Good! So take a seat. Only for this I would suggest something, with the fact that, of course, within the mediation, both parties must agree. However, we will decide that the mediation will not be in Slovakia! So I say this in advance, the proceedings are conducted in the Czech Republic, they are conducted at the local court, so in terms of economy, speed of proceedings, the mediation would definitely take place here in Prague.
Sister	Of course you can suggest that, Your Honor...
​Judge	No, I decide!
Sister	Will you also decide that we must accept this mediator?
​Judge	Yes! Whether you accept it or not, but certainly not Slovak! (irritably)
Sister	Closer to Slovakia. Brno, for example, is for both parties...
​Judge	Please, let's talk some more if...
Sister	If you would allow, honorable court, the subject of mediation is again only an agreement. We have no problem saying what we want, we have said it clearly.
​Judge	No! Exactly! I want to write it down now! (irritably) Yeah? In what way could it be solved, and then you tell me whether it would work or not!
Sister	Given the fact that the lawsuit was filed and essentially a year ago, ...
​Judge	Please, I postponed it 2 times because of you, so we won't say that we are extending it... (jumps into the conversation irritably).
Sister	I have come, I am talking about, honorable court, how this dispute can be done more economically and effectively, because mediation is another process that lasts and can last half a year according to the law on mediation...
​Judge	No, I have a mediator who doesn't take that long and is relatively very successful. So please, ...
Sister	So I assume he is following the Mediation Act, ...
​Judge	Of course!
Sister	...he has half a year for the parties to come to an agreement, so this process will drag on for another half a year. This is my suggestion that...
​Judge	Okay, so now you dictate to me exactly your proposal as to how you want both of these disputes to be settled. So dictate it to me, please! So the representative of the plaintiff, the plaintiff, proposes to approve the agreement as it stands. Please!

And so, exactly according to #JH's ("Dr. Hustá") expression "No, I decide!" and without accepting the elementary principle of consent of both parties for the person of the mediator, her notification about decision in the matter of mediation was scheduled on 02/03/2021, .

It is probably not necessary to emphasise that this was "their mediator", who also appeared at other court hearings between Radio ГA / ГA and another unfortunate person.

Thus, we started to suspect that Radio ГA / ГA has "its" mediator in addition to "its" judge.

Very interesting things in that first thing will appear soon in our next posts.

I will not be sarcastic, so I will leave without comment the probably unique qualities of the judge assigned to the mediator. Actually, I don't even know her qualities. I looked at this whole selection of hers quite pragmatically - it was "their selection" and without any discussion with us about her acceptance, her remuneration was much higher than is customary in the region and the most important thing which played its role in our making decision in non-acceptance her in the future was the fact that the doctor lives 6 minutes' walk from the Radio ГA / ГA's hired law office and where #MV ("Mgr. Prasátko") worked.

So her non-objectivity and neutrality had already been directly dealt with in advance.

Looking back, I keep asking myself - didn't all those unfortunate people (before me) see and know this? Or did it not bother them and blindly still believed in the justice of the reading book? Or did it not bother her legal representatives, if they even had any?

Our victory was that the judge finally accepted our objection and ordered the mediation process to Brno.

As can be seen from the copy in the reply below, it was necessary for them to have the proverbial last word here as well.

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The Covid year was at its peak and after several changes of dates, we finally received a confirmed date for the meeting with the mediator. That date became April 12, 2021.

In the morning we got into the car and, equipped with masks and expecting the unexpected, we set off towards Brno. After a few hours of travel, we were greeted by Brno's cool April morning, sprinkled with a few drops of rain. While waiting for Mr. Mediator in front of his office, our defendant duo #MV ("Mr. Prasátko") and #LA ("Leklá Andělka") suddenly appeared from around the corner of the street. Actually, I didn't expect so much interest, especially from her side. On the other hand, it gave me a sense of importance, I admit. With the passage of time and now with the knowledge of other things, I know that this privilege really only got to me and the other cases of other unfortunates were already developing outside of her interest.

We were ushered into a large office dominated by the mediator's desk and an adjacent desk for those who can't come up with a name. At first we just stared blankly at each other from behind the masks, and then, at the mediator's command, we got into each other.

I got the floor first, and since it was the first time I could tell them from the bottom of my lungs what I thought about this whole monster process, I tried not to let them down. When I got really excited and the sentences and thoughts were falling out of me as if from "machine gun", #LA ("Dr. Leklá Andělka") interrupted me with a sentence that completely took the wind out of my sails - "Sir, could you properly put a mask on?” Thanks to the mask that tightly wrapped around my chin, you couldn't see how my jaw dropped under it.

So I put on the mask as a sample according to Mr. Prymula's recommendation and tried to follow up on the broken wet thread. When I was getting into the caliber again, she repeated her attempt to throw me off. My sister must have understood from my expression that in the nearest moment I would throw myself across the table and the whole mediation effort would end even before it properly began, and with the calmness of a lawyer she turned to her: Doctor, if you feel that you could have been infected by us, so feel free to move your stool further.

There was a moment of awkward silence, accompanied only by the shifting of her chair. When she finally settled down, I was unable to simply continue my speech. Even now, I feel sorry for Mr. Mediator, who had to maintain the dignity of the situation and not laugh.

#LA ("Dr. Leklá Andělka"), sitting on a chair in the middle of a large room about 3-4 meters from us, her lawyer sitting and listening at our table and me - speaking loudly to her from this distance - it really felt very comically.

When I finished, Mr. Mediator tried to summarize for us all the main ideas of my speech. The fact that #LA ("Dr. Leklá Andělka") disagreed with my arguments was to be expected. I was surprised that she didn't understand what I was talking about at all. She probably wasn't even listening to me. Otherwise, I can't understand how she could summarise my speech in these simple sentences - we really didn't deserve this from you", "we wouldn't have expected this from you" and "you disappointed us a lot".

Then she got to speak.

With the mask properly fitted just below her bloodshot eyes (probably from getting up early, with the edge of her dignity and sitting in the middle of the large room, this time she launched herself into me. After the introductory sentences in the spirit already described above and after the learned phrases about Radio ГA / ГA, I internally turned it off. I began to have the unrelenting feeling that the trip to this beautiful city was a waste of time and money for us, that we would never agree with them, and that it was only a game on their part.

As I was thinking about her in this way, my sister leaned over and whispered something in my ear.

At that moment, the red rag was thrown and #LA("Dr. Leklá Andělka") got into us and started lecturing us exasperatedly. That it is rude, that when she speaks, we should listen to her!

Since I wasn't used to being educated by such a morally anchored pedagogue in my then almost sixty years of age, I just stared blankly and didn't have the mask on at the time, I would certainly have looked like a "retard" at that moment.

Again, my sister saved the situation and, with her calmness, answered her with regret in her voice - ...then we must be rude".

When we both finished our monologues, the mediator turned to us to share our ideas for a settlement.

Because the opposing party had already known our ideas since January 2021, which I also documented in writing before the meeting, he was surprised by the reaction of #LA ("Dr. Leklá Andělka"), who said that we should again propose a settlement method.

He was visibly unprepared for such a thing, so he reminded them that mediation is about mutual assessment of proposals and finding a common consensus.

That it is not about one side only making proposals and the other only rejecting them, saying that they definitely want to come to an agreement.

The opposing party had to accept this argument.

Since they didn't have their "independent" judge #JH ("Dr. Hustá") here, who would be the only one capable of tipping the scales of justice in the right direction, after about a minute of silence they both asked for 10 minute break for a meeting outside the office door.

We wondered what they were doing behind that door. We imagined them burning wires all the way to Washington and pulling someone from USAGM out of bed, or consulting with someone "up there", like #KF("Kristina Fšetko"). Or that a friend on the phone would advise #JH ("Dr. Hustá")?

Our gray brain cells were in full blast, preparing responses to the possible scenarios that would come with them as soon as the door opened.

What are we able to accept? That was probably our most common thought.

When they didn't come even after 15 minutes of waiting and we worriedly discussed with the mediator whether something had happened to them behind the door, God forbid, or if by chance they didn't run away from this meeting, at the request of the mediator the door was finally opened, and so our mediation the negotiations could proceed to their quick finale.

And what was their proposal, for which we trudged across half the country, took time off, paid for PCR tests, for diesel, and for which we had to wait almost 4 months?

After they settled down at a safe distance from us, Mr. Advocate #MV ("Mgr. Prasátko") finally took the floor with a serious voice.

That they considered their proposal for a long time, that it is a huge bag of money for poor Radio ГA / ГA, so I shouldn't expect more than 3 months' salary from them. And that it is said to be a decent amount for dismissal due to redundancy, the second of the righteous duo, #LA ("Dr. Leklá Andělka") added to the lawyer.

The mediator's question, whether we agree with this proposal, was rather just to keep the conversation going and for him to fulfill his duty. He knew from the documents that they had already come up with similar ideas in January 2021, so he didn't even mentally break us down.

I only remember that in response to their wonderful proposal, the last few verses of the song "Song of the Unknown Soldier" by Karel Kryl flashed through my head.

How much are they paying you for this idea?

You'd rather be snoring with bitches!

What are you telling me? Would I go again? Like?

Are you waiting for an answer? Shit, yeah, shit!”

So we drove home again with nothing done.

Anyway, at home when evaluating the results of this trip to Brno, we clearly came to the conclusion that Radio ГA / ГA is not interested in reconciliation and that they are only playing for time and our nerves. That they will try to scare us, intimidate us and financially exhaust us with similar actions. After all, it is known that RESOURCES ARE, as the communists used to say on similar occasions.

However, they kicked back a bit more - they finally showed that the described reasons for my resignation were only a pretext for my immediate dismissal due to so-called redundancy.

And so, after returning from the meeting on 18/05/2021, we sent the HR department of Radio ГА / ГA the following evaluation of the work of their parliamentarians:

So I decided to definitely put down the imaginary gloves and start fighting with their means and rules. But we didn't know how dirty they were back then.

We were only halfway there and our destination was out of sight. I was preparing for a thorough inspection of the files, listening to the recordings and for another court hearing that awaited us in the next 4 months.

But more on that next time, if there is one.