Do they end their suffering in Jordan? .. owe behind bars and creditors waiting to pay

Ayman Fadilat-Amman

The 50-year-old university professor Salam MS did not expect her walk-in treatment from the university she spent her life to lead to Juwaida prison, on the back of a $ 200 financial issue for a bank, because of a miscalculation of the payments made.

Meanwhile, the 30-year-old Mahmoud AF has gone into hiding from public security officers and is walking down the secondary roads away from police patrols that arrest wanted persons in financial cases.

Mahmoud tells Al-Jazeera Net that he is required for judicial execution pending three financial cases. He has entered into a trade and has not been helped by the weak sales movement, unable to pay debts and is now required to be imprisoned.

"The big problem is that if I am imprisoned I will not be able to pay, my family will be evicted from our rented house, and my family will stay on the street."

Manal Kasht is no better than her predecessors. Attending a parliamentary session of the House of Representatives led her to Juwaida prison, leaving her two young children.

After being arrested while leaving the dome of the parliament - she continues to talk to Al Jazeera Net - she discovered that a bank had filed a case worth eight thousand dinars (11.3 thousand dollars) was not paid for the apartment she lived during her marriage.

New legislation
The story of the insolvency of the insolvent debtor is somewhat complicated in Jordan, as the demands of the affected persons required for judicial execution, activists and jurists were to find a legislative provision that prevents the imprisonment of the insolvent debtor and is replaced by other penalties that guarantee the creditor his right to recover his money.

The defenders described the imprisonment of the insolvent debtor due to the deterioration of its financial circumstances due to poor economic conditions as "unfair and unjust", demanding the amendment of legislation to allow insolvent debtors to work and pay their debts.

They were supported by a parliamentary memorandum signed by 110 deputies submitted to King Abdullah II instructing the government to amend the articles of the Penal and Judicial Enforcement Act to prevent imprisonment of the insolvent debtor in cases of checks and bills of exchange. And criminal cases.

MP Moataz Abu Rumman, the sponsor of the memorandum, told Al Jazeera Net that the memorandum distinguishes between the debtor withholding, defaulting or insolvent unable to pay, and finding a formula to give him a reasonable time to pay, with the scheduling of debts.

Mad industrialists
The chambers of commerce and industry have gone crazy in approaching the House of Representatives to amend the Penal Code so as not to allow the imprisonment of the debtor if it is unable to pay for a proven financial deficit.

In the opinion of the President of the Chamber of Industry Fathi al-Jaghbir that the memorandum of deputies "a great harm to the various economic sectors," especially since imprisonment is a personal right of the creditor can not be waived to protect his right.

He continued - in a statement to the island Net - that there are industrial companies have rights of millions of dinars in the local market, and prevent the imprisonment of the debtor on its launch will raise the volume of bounced checks and carry companies financial losses, and negatively affect confidence between economic activities.

Al-Jaghbir suggested finding an integrated system that protects the creditor and preserves his rights, facilitates the defaulting debtor in repayment, and that the value of the debt be divided into categories so that the debtor is not charged by one thousand dinars, such as one million.

The value of checks returned during the first seven months of this year amounted to 956 million dinars (1.3 billion dollars).

New implementation law
The government quietly set out a new draft law for judicial execution that allows for a time limit for the repayment of debt in the event of a settlement offered by the debtor, reducing the duration of imprisonment on debts less than one thousand dinars to thirty days, and preventing the imprisonment of the debtor over the age of 70 years Allow imprisonment.

The new law, according to Justice Minister Bassam Talhouni, told local media that the chief executive had the power to issue a travel ban order against the debtor if he disposed of money, ran away or was about to leave the country.

The new draft law authorizes the Chief Executive Officer to order the seizure of movable and immovable property of the sentenced person, before the legal period has elapsed on the notification paper, if he is satisfied that the convicted person has started to smuggle his property.

Experts believe that the parties to the equation, including convicts, activists, the Bar Association and human rights associations, and the Association of Banks, Industrialists and Merchants, should sit at a dialogue table to discuss this important issue. Especially since some convicts have spent years in prison without the debtor recovering dinars from his right.