AMMAN — The government has submitted
recommendations to amend the Penal Code in the coming weeks as COVID-19
restrictions are eased, to avoid overwhelming the courts if provisions of
Defense Order No. 28, which “postponed” debtor imprisonment under Law No. 25 of
2007, are suspended.
اضافة اعلان
The defense order had been issued “to reduce
overcrowding in reform and rehabilitation centers, prevent the spread of the
coronavirus pandemic in them, and take into account the financial and economic
conditions resulting from the pandemic”. It also suspended the imprisonment of
individuals found guilty of issuing a
bad checks.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Bisher
Al-Khasawneh formed a committee, headed by Ahmad Ziadat, the justice minister,
to study alternatives and measures that may be taken to deal with any adverse
outcome of suspending that defense order.
Justice Ministry Spokesman Nizar Kharabsheh told
Jordan
News that recommendations had been submitted to the Lower House for
discussion on Sunday.
Lawmaker and member of the Lower House Legal
Committee Firas Ajarmeh told
Jordan News that discussions of the issue
under the dome were general in nature. However, “it is a pressing issue since
we are close to the end of the pandemic,” he said.
More than 100,000 cases of bad checks from
individuals or entities are pending because of the defense order, he said.
Therefore, “when the defense orders are abolished, the law which calls for
imprisonment will be implemented, which is why it must be amended,” he said.
“The law will be studied thoroughly and discussed
with all the concerned parties. We have to protect both the debtor and the
people they owe money to,” Ajarmeh said.
Lawyer, former member of the Lower House, and a
member of the Royal Committee to Modernize the Political System Kais Zayadin
told
Jordan News that he supports abolishing the law that allows for
debtors’ imprisonment, adding that Jordan has signed many international
treaties that do not allow it.
“There are other ways to recover people’s dues
without taking away someone’s freedom,” Zayadin said, adding that Jordan’s
economic reality should be taken into account.
He explained that the law should be applied only to
cases relating to bad checks issued before the defense order went into effect,
because at the time people accepted checks as a guarantee that they would be
paid back.
To prevent financial scams, institutions need to be
strengthened and blacklists of debtors created.
“Then, if someone has unpaid debt or a bounced
check, they will be prohibited from opening a bank account, taking a loan, and
receiving or executing any financial services for many years,” Zayadin said.
Legal scholar Abdelrauof Al-Kasasbeh, on the other
hand, told
Jordan News that he is against abolishing the debtor’s
imprisonment because that would “encourage people to take matters into their
own hands, which will increase crime rates and threaten the safety and security
of society”.
Kasasbeh said that debtors’ imprisonment encourages
economic exchanges, especially among merchants who know they can rely on a
check as legal protection when selling products. If that does not exist, “it will
negatively impact the economy,” he said.
The solution, to him, is to have debtors imprisoned
because this acts as a deterrent.
“When someone is imprisoned, their family will go
above and beyond to ensure the debt is paid back. But if the law is abolished,
they will not. So things should return to pre-pandemic times even if that
results in overwhelming the courts, because people have rights,” Kasasbeh said.
Lawyer and professor of law Omar Al-Khataibeh told
Jordan
News that debtors should no longer be imprisoned, but only after mechanisms
that will regulate the issue are introduced.
A way of preventing people from issuing bad checks
is to have banks deny checkbooks to these individuals for five to seven years.
They “should also be blacklisted so they will not repeat it”.
Khataibeh said the government should postpone
debtors’ imprisonment until the pandemic is entirely over, to control the
spread of the virus amongst inmates. At the same time, courts should gradually
look into cases of indebted people and bad checks and create an effective and
fair mechanism that hinges “on the execution date or the total amount of
debt”.
He said that it would be difficult to detain all the
debtors after the defense order is abolished, “since hundreds of thousands of
legal cases are pending in courts, which is bound to overwhelm the court and
prisons”.
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