Charles Dickens, De Kunstenaar en Het Insolventierecht
1Het Insolventierecht.
In begin van de jaren 1790 werd door het House of Commons besloten een
parlementair onderzoek in te stellen naar de praktijk en gevolgen van de
gevangenschap wegens schulden. Het rapport werd in april 1792 gedrukt. Het
behandelde eerst het arrest on Mesne Process. Dit kon plaats vinden voor ieder bedrag
van tenminste £10. In de Court of King's Bench had de aangeklaagde geen enkel
mogelijkheid van verweer. In de Court of Common Pleas mocht de aangeklaagde
aantonen, dat de schuld hoogst onwaarschijnlijk was of schriftelijk bewijzen, dat er
geheel geen schuld was. In feite een zware omgekeerde bewijslast dus.
Bij de arrestatie werd geen enkele rekening gehouden met persoonlijke
omstandigheden:
An Arrest may be made at any Hour by Day or by Night, and on any Day, Sunday
excepted.
In the Execution of an Arrest on legal Process, the Officer having got peaceably in
at the outer Door, may break open the Door of an inner Apartment to arrest the
Defendant or Debtor; and may do so with Circumstances of extreme
Violence. Accordingly, in a Case where the Officers had broken into a Bedchamber,
in which the Defendant and his Wife were in Bed, and had conducted themselves
with great Outrage; and in another, where the Door was broke open with such
Violence that it fell, and with it the Officer, into the Room, it was held (necessarily as
the Law stands) that as they had peaceably entered the outer Door, there was
nothing unlawful in the Arrest.
A Plaintiff may arrest the Defendant, imprison him for Want of Bail, and there
detain him in Custody, though he knows and admits that such Defendant is insane;
and the Court cannot discharge the Defendant out of Prison, either where he had
become insane while in Prison, or was insane at the Time of the Arrest.
And the Law has made no Provision for supplying indigent Prisoners with necessary
Food, Bed Clothes, or Covering of any Kind.
A debtor may be imprisoned on Execution, upon a Capias ad Satisfaciendum, for a
Debt of any Amount, however small; and though manifestly unable to discharge the
Debt, and at all Times ready to give up his Effects, he may be detained in Prison, if his
Creditor think proper, for Life, without any possible Means of regaining his Liberty; with
the single Exception of a Debtor who happens as a Trader, to be protected by the
Certificate of Bankrupt.
A Person known and admitted to be insane, as he may be arrested on Mesne
Process, so he may be imprisoned in Execution, and detained in Prison for any length
of Time; the Courts not having it in their Power to discharge him, or to take his Body
from the Creditor.
And as there is nothing to protect Persons who are in the utmost Extremity of
