Wednesday, 11 January 2012 10:00
Fair Warning on Maintenance
The Judgement handed down in the recent case about enforcement of maintenance means that certain requirements must be fulfilled before committing a defaulter to prison.
Generally, where the person liable to pay maintenance defaults , the court can have that person committed to jail for contempt of court order. Certain safeguards were introduced by the Court Orders Amendment Act 2009.
In this particular case, a man was committed to jail for failure to pay maintenance in circumstances where he was not given adequate opportunity to pay the outstanding amount, nor was he warned of the possibility of being imprisoned for failure to pay.
When he appealed to the High Court, he was released for the above reasons.
It is clear that no orders for imprisoned should be made in the future without the safeguards outlined above being in place.
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