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FEBRUARY, 1912J
The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.
91
years.
Perhaps 1 may mention in passing
that there is one matter which often annoys
me considerably, and that is, when I hear it
said :
" Oh !
look at the grand means of
recovering small debts they have in England."
Why, before ever such a thing as a County
Court was heard of in England we had our
local small debt Courts in Ireland.
It was
not until the middle of the last century that
anything was done in a practical way to
enable small debts to be recovered in the
County Courts
in England.
In Ireland,
however, an Act of 9th William 3, Chap. 15,
after reciting that it would conduce to the
advancement of trade if there was a summary
way of recovering small debts, and accord
ingly enacted that in every County and City
and County of a City or a Town, a Registrar
should be
appointed who
should be
a
resident, and who was thereby empowered
on evidence as set forth in said Act being
produced to his satisfaction, to issue bonds
in the nature of judgments. All payments
on account had to be endorsed on the bond.
This Act provided
for warrants
to be
executed by the Sheriffs and bailiffs.
It also
provided that the Sheriffs were to make
returns to the Registrar before the next
Quarter
Sessions,
and
condemned
the
Sheriff who refused to execute in treble the
amount of the judgment and costs.
So that
in the third year of the reign of King William
III. we had, what seems to have been, a more
expeditious means of recovering small debts
than at the present time. There is another
matter I should like to call attention to in
connection with small debt recovery, and
that is, that the County Dublin has always
been placed on a better footing than the rest
of Ireland in connection with such business.
The Court of Quarter Sessions sitting at
Kilmainham apparently had all the juris
diction and power of the Assize Court, and a
King's Bench Judge or one of His Majesty's
Sergeants-at-Law, if present, had the right
to preside there. The next Act that deals
with small debt recovery is the Act of 1715.
That gave the Judges of Assize, who, up to
this time, had no power to deal with such
matters, power to hear and determine certain
claims up to
£10
upon " English Bill " or
" Paper
petition,"
subsequently
called
" Civil Bill."
In 1725 their jurisdiction was
extended to £20, and in 1757 the same power
the Judges of Assize possessed were given to
the Recorder of the City of Dublin. Then in
1787 an Act was passed appointing assistant
Barristers to assist the Magistrates at the
Courts of Quarter Sessions, and in 1796 there
was apparently the first great attempt made
to codify and bring
into some kind of
regularity the laws that had been scattered
over different Acts of Parliament in con
nection with the small debt recovery business
in the County Courts. That Act of 1796 took
away the powers that the Judges of Assize
had as Courts of first instance of dealing with
these matters, and made the Assize Court a
Court of Appeal.
The jurisdiction of 'the
Assize
Courts was
transferred
to
the
Assistant Barristers that had originally been
created by the Act of 1787 with an appeal
from their decisions to the Assizes, and that
Act of 1796 is the foundation of the small
debt recovery legislation and Civil Bill Courts
in this country. The 1796 Act as amended
from time to time remained in force until
1851, when the 14 and 15 Victoria was
passed, and a very large part of that Act—
practically all of it—was lifted bodily out of'
the Act of 1796, and put info the Act of 1851.
There were some Acts dealing with Sheriffs
and matters of detail, but there was very
little in the way of general County Court
legislation after that year until 1877, when
we got the last great County Court Act. And
that is, speaking generally, how we stand at
the present time as regards Acts of Parlia
ment dealing with these matters.
It did not
take very
long
for
the Merchants and
Traders and the Profession to find out that
there were defects in the Act of 1877 which
oughf! to be remedied, and suggestions were
made and agitations got up.
In 1895,
matters having come to a head, we find a
deputation from the Traders waiting upon
the Lord Chancellor.
In 1896 the Dublin
County Court Practitioners issued a manifesto
in which they stated how they thought the
procedure should .be amended.
In 1899 the
Merchants again saw the Lord Chancellor,
who. in 1900, brought in his first Bill, which
failed to pass, and was re-introduced in 1901.
In 1906 Mr. Healy brought in a Bill, and the
same year the Sheriffs brought in a Bill,
while in 1907 Mr. John Gordon brought in a
Bill.
In 1908 Mr. Gordon again brought in
his Bill and in 1909 came Mr. Field's Bill.