Finding Room for Courage: Discretion and Relational Justice in Veterans' Disputes
Mediating with Moral Presence in Institutional Disputes
A Work-in-Progress
Over the month of April, we have been developing the foundation for our Veterans' ADR Program: a theory and practice of relational justice, grounded in care, clarity, and moral presence.
Turning to Practical Matters
This week, we turn to the practical aspects of mediating in veterans’ conflicts and disputes — particularly within institutional settings, where law, policy, managerial processes, and discretion often intersect in complex ways.
In these environments, systems designed to ensure fairness, efficiency, and accountability may sometimes prioritise procedural goals — such as service standards, satisfaction metrics, or administrative clarity — over deeper relational outcomes.
Without intending harm, institutional processes may unintentionally:
Focus on closure rather than repair,
Prioritise measured responsiveness over felt recognition,
Substitute procedural transparency for relational presence.
This systemic tendency is not the fault of individuals. It reflects broader structural patterns that can shape how organisations respond to conflict and claims for redress.
And our perspective is not about blame. It is about opening space for relational courage — where ethical discretion can be exercised, and moral repair becomes possible.
Our focus, in this and subsequent Field Notes, is therefore:
What does it mean to do justice when we are entrusted with discretion?
And how can relational justice offer both a compass and a safeguard for that work?
How can mediators create spaces where relational justice — attentiveness, responsibility, responsiveness, and ethical courage — can be exercised within these structures?
Diagnosing the Current Problem – The Gravity of Oppositional Systems
The Relational Vacuum in Commercial and Administrative Disputes
In commercial and administrative disputes — particularly as matters approach adjudication — relational space collapses, and mediation can become law-driven, risk-averse, and relationally hollow.
Clients may be sheltered from decision-making.
Institutional actors, particularly in administrative settings, are incentivised toward defensibility, not moral repair.
We recognise that these dynamics may differ in family mediation, where parties are principals with direct, personal stakes in relational and emotional outcomes. In family mediation, relational courage is often necessary and visible.
Our critique here focuses specifically on commercial and administrative mediation, where systemic incentives often suppress relational engagement.
Veterans’ Experience of the Relational Vacuum
In administrative disputes involving veterans, the structural incentives are particularly stark:
Departmental officers act as custodians of metrics, not as relational participants.
Success is measured by money saved and files closed, not by harm repaired.
Responsibility is displaced; decision-making becomes defensive.
Veterans often experience these systems not as sources of support, but as mechanisms of institutional betrayal.
In that context, the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide observed that DVA's governance structures have fostered an impersonal, bureaucratic culture that often exacerbates distress rather than repairing harm — summed up in the words of one ex-serving Navy member:
"No care. No accountability. No transparency."
— Royal Commission Report, Volume 5, [252]
Implosion Is Not Resolution
Yet even in this environment — where structures favour defensiveness over discretion — disputes do sometimes resolve. But these late resolutions often arise not through relational repair, but through exhaustion, tactical retreat, or unavoidable risk.
When a party’s position implodes only under the weight of imminent defeat, it often reveals a deeper failure:
That the contention was unsustainable.
That relational repair opportunities were deferred or denied.
That courage was surrendered too late to rebuild trust.
Why Timing Matters: Courage Is Easier Early
The closer a dispute moves toward adjudication, the narrower the window for relational engagement.
What hope there might have been in the early stages for relational repair often vanishes under the shadow of an impending trial — especially in cases where the credibility of evidence and witnesses has been, or is likely to be, contested.
Positions entrench.
Lawyers dominate.
Relational space collapses.
Tribunal and court-annexed mediation processes — valuable as they are for certain procedural purposes — have inherent limitations if the goal is moral repair.
Their proximity to formal adjudication constrains discretionary courage.
As Helgi Maki writes:
The antidote to moral injury is moral repair, and the salve for institutional betrayal is institutional courage.
Moral repair demands early relational engagement — Not tactical exhaustion. Not the squandering of relational goodwill.
Back-Door Discretion
Even before disputes reach adjudication, however, deeper structural patterns often shape institutional responses —through systems that prioritise procedural success over relational repair. Discretion is often treated not as an ethical opportunity for engagement, but as a back-door escape route for decision-makers — rather than a front-door entry point for those seeking relational justice.
To understand why discretion is so often exercised defensively, and why moral repair is so often deferred, we must turn briefly to the soft language and hard structures of contemporary managerialism.
Soft Language; Hard Reality
In many administrative settings, the language of relational responsibility has been softened — reframed in terms like “service excellence,” “customer experience,” and “agile responsiveness.”
But this soft language can mask a harder reality:
Systems driven by risk aversion, performance metrics, and procedural closure rather than relational presence, responsiveness, or moral repair.
This dynamic was noted by the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, which observed that Defence and DVA’s systems have increasingly prioritised administrative outputs over relational engagement:
“Defence has maintained a focus on administration, and employment and career supports, rather than understanding the cultural and psychological realities of transition.”
— Royal Commission, Volume 5, [426].
Veterans often experience these systems not as sources of relational support, but as bureaucratic structures concerned more with meeting performance targets than with recognising relational or moral needs.
Administrative systems, built to ensure fairness and efficiency, too often default to:
Focusing on closure rather than ethical repair;
Prioritising measurable responsiveness over felt recognition;
Substituting process transparency for relational accountability.
With deep structural inertia, these systems may unintentionally cause or perpetuate harm — even as they meet internal metrics and procedural standards.
In this environment, relational justice must work intentionally:
To reframe discretion as ethical service, not just procedural compliance;
To reclaim relational presence where managerialism has displaced care.
How Relational Justice Reframes Discretion
Discretion is an Act of Care
Exercise of a discretion, properly understood, is neither a gamble nor a gift. It is an act of service, an act of care — grounded in attentiveness, competence, responsibility, responsiveness, and solidarity (caring-with).
Relational justice, as we have described it, rests on four intertwined foundations:
an ethic of care, insight into threat and meaning in conflict, trauma-informed practice, and the lived experiences of veterans.
It is justice that is responsive, responsible, competent, and attentive to the moral standing of those affected — not merely procedural compliance or transactional closure.
In this framework, discretion is not an escape from duty; it is an opportunity to act ethically and with courage when rules fall silent or fail to meet needs.
Relational justice:
Provides a compass — orienting discretionary choices toward relational integrity.
Provides a safeguard — protecting against arbitrary, fearful, or capricious use of discretion.
Doing justice through discretion is not reckless. It is relationally disciplined.
Finding Institutional Courage
Institutional courage in veterans' disputes means:
Recognising moral harm even where legal liability is absent.
Acknowledging structural gaps (e.g., service differentials, offsetting anomalies) without being forced.
Acting within lawful discretion, but doing so with attentiveness and competence.
Engaging early — before harm hardens into grievance.
Supporting Institutional Courage in Mediation
Our Veterans' ADR Program is therefore designed to:
Create a safe relational space for courageous institutional action, free from adversarial exposure.
Reality-test institutional responses against relational justice standards.
Facilitate forward-leaning action plans, moral statements, and recognition of harm.
Strengthen relational legitimacy, not just procedural defensibility.
By supporting early engagement, ethical presence, and relational repair, our model enables discretion to serve justice — not merely to manage risk.
This becomes the focus of our design now. And it brings us back to where we began.
Closing Reflection
Courage does not require abandoning law. It requires serving those whom the law, in its structure, has overlooked.
Where the law is silent, and policy rigid, relational justice calls us not to retreat into defensiveness — but to step forward into presence, responsibility, and care.
"Doing justice is not reckless. It is the steady disciplined act of relational courage."
Reference
Maki, Helgi; Florestal, Marjorie; McCallum, Myrna. (2023) Trauma-Informed Law: A Primer for Practicing Lawyers and a Pathway for Resilience and Healing (p. 80). American Bar Association. Kindle Edition.