JUDGMENT DEBTORS

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 347, 1 August 1885, Page 11

JUDGMENT DEBTORS

ITot long ago Mr Justice Gtillies expressed a strong opinion as to the practice prevailing in sojie of the inferior courts with regard to judgment summonses. His reading of the law was that no Court had a right to imprison a debtor because he did not put aside part of his daily earnings to pay an old debt. No man ought to hare known the intention of the Act better than Judge Gillies, who had most to do v/ith passing it, and few men can more authoritatively interpret the law as it stands than he can. It n-as hoped that the expression of this opinion would have induced our Magistrate to change liis system of dealing with such cases, but such appears not to be the case. On Monday last, at the District Court, the Helensville Timber Company obtained an order for payment of the debt of £42 15s 6d within a month, with the alternative of a month's imprisonment, against a Mr B. B. E. Turner. The evidence was that the debtor was an hotelkeeper, and beyond this the creditor could say nothing as to his means. On such a case as this, the law should be tested. So far as appears, the District Court Judge has been guilty of a grossly illegal act in making such an order. The law authorizes him to make an order if he is satisfied from evidence that the debtor has the means of paying the debt, or has had such means since the judgment was given. The fact that a man keeps an hotel is no proof that he has £42 15s 6d of his own. Nothing can be more ridiculous than to suppose so. It would be at least equally reasonable to hold that because the District Judge gets some £700 a year, he must be able to pay a debt of £1000. Such judgments are a mere prostitution of the process of the Court into a means of extorting money. If the debtor gets this amount, he will in all probability have to victimise somebody else. If he does"not, the law/ which was meant to protect poor debtors, will be made the instrument of punishing one of them as for a crime,