Imprisonment for Debt.

Manawatu Standard, Volume X, Issue 55, 3 August 1885, Page 4

Imprisonment for Debt.

The following- appeared m -the ' Observer of a recent, date :—'* Qni • Friday; last Mr Justice' Gillies g'Wo ! an impoitanc decision on the meaningof an important act. The Abolitionof Imprisonment frn- Debt Act lias; been m forcefov fully ten. years, and! yet, m this part of the colony at any ' rate, its intention has never been made the subject, of any 'deliberate 1 judioal opinion. ; The. Res.dent Magisirate ami District Court Judges have been m the habit of makiao;- orders for the imprisonment of debtors unless they paid judgment debts by instalments, often on very, meagre evidence, and sometimes on ,no evi-. dence at all. 'Mr Jutice Gillies says this is entirely yronjj, and is^dj^ectly m eontrkvenCi'ori ! of the Act's intention Ho certainly ought to..kno'f;i ashe had a great deal to do with Sjettini; the Act passed. His vie y, of" tjie law is 'that no man can be im-;; prisoned lawfully under it JiecaiMo Wdoes not pay hi.>< debts out of his daily earnings. The provision, ac- ; cordingH;o him; ' wr.s merely "to prp-* vent the dishoivest concealment of means which is available to pay ! debts. ToMnaicft each magistrate the i irresponsilile^idge 61" how much a | man's family inquires oourt r of his ; wages, is to put. an immense power m . th.eir |l,iand??, and one -which -Judge * Gillies .says wa* never intended by ; the Parliament. It. may be hoped ; that (his expression of opinion will ! control the, pi'actico of our "i inf^rioK courts, where the judgment summons .nuisauco has of late assumed very iformidablerproport.to.na. ■ \ . . -V