New instructions meant to prevent detention of liable persons in financial lawsuits

AMMAN — Justice Minister Awad Abu Jarad on Monday instructed the Judicial Execution Directorate's concerned officials, including accountants, to work 24/7 to allow people held liable in financial lawsuits to pay their dues and avoid arrest by judicial police.

The announcement, reported by the Jordan News Agency, Petra, came days after Public Security Department (PSD) Director Maj. Gen. Ahmad Faqih formed an investigative committee to examine a complaint filed by a lady who was detained by a police patrol as she was wanted for failure to pay JD900 under a court ruling.

The woman reportedly told police she was ready to pay immediately but the officers insisted on taking her to custody till the next morning.

Commissioner General of the National Centre for Human Rights (NCHR) Musa Braizat said that the centre was aware of similar complaints about judicial police’s procedures, lauding the measures taken by the justice minister as prone to make lives easier for persons held liable in cases involving financial claims.

He said that such instructions meet a national goal set by His Majesty King Abdullah to readjust judicial procedures and cut red tape. 

The commissioner was referring to the King’s directives to a Royal committee tasked with drawing a map for judicial reform. The King told the panel last year that it should come up with recommendations on how best to enhance the independence of the judiciary and judges, update and develop judicial administration, develop criminal justice procedures, mechanisms of court rulings’ execution and procedures of lawsuits.

Commenting on the decision taken by the minister, Samah Marmash, a lawyer, said the minister’s decision was a “good move that serves the spirit of justice”.

Commenting on the PSD chief-ordered probe into the case of the woman, she said the patrol officers were doing their job and what they did was at surface value legal, but the spirit of the law dictates that in such cases, police should ensure people access to the concerned agency to pay their dues. The Justice Ministry’s new instructions would put things on the right track, the jurist said.  

Other legal experts questioned the very rule allowing sending people to prison for failing to pay financial commitments, citing a prohibiting international law. 

In a phone interview, Elham Abu Lebdeh, a consultant at the Justice Centre for Legal Aid, noted that according to Article 11 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a multilateral treaty adopted by the UN General Assembly in1966, to which Jordan is party, it is prohibited to “use imprisonment as a punishment for breach of contract”. 

However, she noted, the Jordanian Penal Code allows such a penalty, so she agreed with Marmash that the police patrol in the above-mentioned case was just executing a court order.

Atef Al Majali, a lawyer working for the NCHR, agreed that there is a clash between Article 11 in the ICCPR and Article 22/A of the Penal Code, which states that the creditor can imprison the debtor. 

“If the debtor is locked up, this would be useless as it will cost the country. Set the debtors free and give them a chance to work and pay what they have to pay instead,” Majali said.

“In terms of supremacy, the Jordanian Constitution comes first, and then international treaties the country has entered, and then Jordanian laws”, he noted.