The Gazette 1911-12

The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.

FEBRUARY, 1912J

91

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.

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