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NLJ this week: Pay your debt or surrender your passport

07 February 2025
Issue: 8103 / Categories: Legal News , Procedure & practice , International , Jurisdiction
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While rare, the courts can make passport orders to prevent judgment debtors leaving the country. In this week’s NLJ, Chris Bryden and Clara Parry discuss the use of this legal technique and how these orders are enforced.

The subject of the order will surrender their passport so the court can be sure they will not abscond. Bryden, barrister, and Parry, pupil barrister, 4 King’s Bench Walk, write: ‘Given the significant interference to the liberty of the respondent to those actions and given the nature of the order, it is not to be used as an enforcement sanction in and of itself. Rather, in appropriate cases, it is a tool that can facilitate enforcement.’

They examine the circumstances and parameters for which such an order would be appropriate, setting out relevant caselaw. 

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Hugh James—Phil Edwards

Hugh James—Phil Edwards

Serious injury teambolstered by high-profile partner hire

Freeths—Melanie Stancliffe

Freeths—Melanie Stancliffe

Firm strengthens employment team with partner hire

DAC Beachcroft—Tim Barr

DAC Beachcroft—Tim Barr

Lawyers’ liability practice strengthened with partner appointment in London

NEWS
Tech companies will be legally required to prevent material that encourages or assists serious self-harm appearing on their platforms, under Online Safety Act 2023 regulations due to come into force in the autumn
Commercial leasehold, the defence of insanity and ‘consent’ in the criminal law are among the next tranche of projects for the Law Commission
The Bar has a culture of ‘impunity’ and ‘collusive bystanding’ in which making a complaint is deemed career-ending due to a ‘cohort of untouchables’ at the top, Baroness Harriet Harman KC has found
Lawyers have broadly welcomed plans to electronically tag up to 22,000 more offenders, scrap most prison terms below a year and make prisoners ‘earn’ early release
David Lammy, Ellie Reeves and Baroness Levitt have taken up office at the Ministry of Justice, following the cabinet reshuffle
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