What is actually the law regarding jail for debt?

Read below,it seems this lady was struggling in business and genuinely couldny afford to pay,and yet she was jailed,infact the court even refused installments from her! I really think the law is very confusing.

http://www.newrossstandard.ie/news/mum-jailed-for-christmas-1994034.html

There is a difference between a failure to pay a Court fine (which this appears to be) and failure to pay a contractual debt (for example, to a lender).

In the latter case, recent case law and enactment of the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law in 2003 incorporated the right not to be imprisoned for failure to pay a contractual debt. Consequently, the law was changed so that when creditor applies to have debtor imprisoned for non-payment (s)he must prove 'wilful and culpable' non-payment. This level of proof does not exist for failure to pay court imposed fine. However, this level of proof has rendered imprisonment for contractual debt very difficult to achieve in practice.

Have been talking to somebody in the area & there's definitely two sides to this story. Fact is that the law was broken and there has to be consequences. The Co. Co. would only ever take this course of action as a VERY last resort...

She had since May to pay the fine , hard to feel any sympathy.

jhegarty said:

She had since May to pay the fine , hard to feel any sympathy.

Click to expand...

+ 1

Read the article ... what did she expect? She broke the law, was fined and failed to pay.