Debtor Imprisonment in the Jordanian Enforcement Law: Limits and Exceptions
Few Jordanian legislative amendments have received as much attention as the restriction of debtor imprisonment, and few have been as widely misunderstood. Law No. 9 of 2022 amending the Enforcement Law was issued, amending Article 22 of the Jordanian Enforcement Law No. 25 of 2007, and it entered into force on June 25, 2025, after a postponement that lasted three years. In public discussion, this amendment was translated into a single short phrase, "the abolition of debtor imprisonment", an inaccurate translation that cost those who built their position on it dearly. The amendment restricted imprisonment; it did not abolish it, and it tied this to a precise legal criterion that may place two debtors owing the same amount in completely opposite positions, which makes presenting the file to a lawyer specializing in enforcement cases a necessity before building any action on what the news has reported.
1. What Actually Changed
The amendment came in response to a well-known international obligation, namely what Article 11 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides: that no one shall be imprisoned merely on the ground of inability to fulfill a contractual obligation. This wording is the key to understanding the amendment as a whole, because the restriction introduced into the Enforcement Law was drafted to the same measure.
In other words, the legislature did not say that imprisonment is prohibited for debts; it restricted it where the source of the obligation is a contract. What does not have a contract as its source remained outside the scope of the restriction. The legislature then made specific exceptions to the restriction itself relating to obligations arising from employment contracts and obligations arising under lease agreements, so these remained among the cases in which imprisonment is permitted, even though they are contractual in origin.
The result is therefore neither abolition nor retention, but a new map in which the source of the obligation, not the size of the debt, determines the debtor's position.
2. Why Debtors Misclassify Their Debts
The common assumption is that the debtor knows the nature of his debt, but practical reality says otherwise, because the legal classification of an obligation does not follow its everyday name or the way it arose in the eyes of its parties.
An amount that the two parties describe as "a loan between friends" may have been documented with an instrument that moves the obligation to a different characterization. An amount that its holder believes arose from a contract may be the subject of a claim founded on an entirely different basis in the enforcement file. And a file that began as a contract may have passed through a court judgment that changed the description of what is being enforced.
This is where the danger lies: a debtor who reads a news item about the restriction of imprisonment, feels reassured and stops dealing with the file may discover that his file belongs to the category that remained outside the restriction, and that the months that passed while he felt reassured were the time in which the file could have been dealt with. Determining the legal characterization of the enforceable instrument is itself a legal point that merits consultation, and it is not inferred from the name of the transaction or from the account given of it.
3. The Map of Obligations after the Amendment
The following table shows the general logic on which the distinction after the amendment rests:
| Type of obligation | Its source | Its position relative to the restriction |
|---|---|---|
| An obligation arising from a contract in general | The will of the two parties | Covered by the restriction as a rule |
| An obligation arising from an employment contract | A contract, excepted by provision | Remained outside the restriction |
| An obligation arising under a lease agreement | A contract, excepted by provision | Remained outside the restriction |
| Compensation for loss and damage | A harmful act, not a contract | Outside the scope of the restriction in the first place |
| Compensation arising from a criminal offense | Criminal liability | Outside the scope of the restriction in the first place |
| Claims arising by operation of law | The text of the law, not a contract | Outside the scope of the restriction in the first place |
The table presents the logic, not the result of any particular file. The practical question is not "which row does my debt belong to?" but "which row does the instrument being enforced against me belong to?", and these are two different questions whose answers may differ within the same file.
Practical note: The wide news coverage that accompanied the amendment focused on the general headline without the detail, and much of the content in circulation still presents the matter as a complete abolition of imprisonment. When assessing the file, the lawyer refers to the text of the article in force and to the enforceable instrument itself, not to what was published about the amendment, and this is a point settled by reviewing the file or consulting a specialist lawyer before taking any position based on the news.
4. The Restriction Does Not Mean the End of the File
One of the most dangerous consequences of misunderstanding the amendment is that some debtors treated the restriction of imprisonment as the end of the claim, and this is not true at all.
The restriction concerns one of the means of compelling enforcement; it does not affect the debt itself, does not discharge the debtor's liability and does not close the enforcement file. The obligation remains in place, the file remains open, and the creditor retains other means recognized by the Enforcement Law to reach his right, which in many cases have a harsher effect on the debtor's daily life and last longer than imprisonment itself.
In other words: whoever thought the amendment ended his problem will find that it has turned into another form, often after he has missed the stage at which it could have been dealt with at the lowest cost. We have addressed the opposite side of the picture, that is, the means that remain available to the creditor, in the article Debt Collection in Jordan.
5. Files That Have Another Dimension outside the Enforcement Law
It should be noted that some debts are not dealt with within the framework of the Enforcement Law alone; they are accompanied by an entirely independent track that is not affected by the amendment.
Transactions involving commercial papers have their own provisions in Jordanian law, and some of their forms may give rise to a track of a criminal nature that is separate from the enforcement file and has nothing to do with the restriction of civil imprisonment, a topic we have covered in Commercial Papers and Cheques in Commercial Transactions. Likewise, amounts awarded by judgment as compensation have a different nature from a contractual debt, and we have set out their basis in Civil Compensation under Jordanian Law.
That is why a debtor who assesses his situation by looking at the Enforcement Law alone may have looked at only half the picture.
6. What the Lawyer Examines on Receiving an Enforcement File
Defense in enforcement files begins with a diagnosis, not a reaction. Among the matters the specialist lawyer looks at:
- The enforceable instrument and its nature: what exactly is being enforced, how it arose, and whether it allows a characterization other than the one on which the request was built. This is the first question, and it determines the rest of the file.
- The current procedural position: what stage the file has reached, because what is available at one stage may not be available at the next, and time limits in these files cannot be made up.
- The validity of previous procedures: not everything that has happened in the file is beyond review, and assessing this is a purely professional matter.
- The debtor's overall situation: the existence of more than one enforcement file, or of multiple creditors, completely changes the correct approach compared with a single file.
Do not ignore notices served on you, and do not dispose of any of your assets after the enforcement file has been opened, before presenting your situation to a lawyer, because some actions that look like individual solutions open up tracks for the person taking them that did not exist before.
7. Frequently Asked Questions
Has debtor imprisonment been abolished in Jordan?
It has not been abolished; it has been restricted. Amending Law No. 9 of 2022 amended Article 22 of the Enforcement Law, entered into force on June 25, 2025, and restricted imprisonment where the source of the obligation is a contract, with obligations arising from employment contracts and lease agreements excepted. Obligations whose source is not a contract did not fall within the scope of the restriction in the first place.
Does this mean the debt has lapsed?
No. The restriction concerns one of the means of enforcement; it does not affect the obligation itself and does not discharge the debtor's liability. The debt remains in place, the enforcement file remains open, and all other means remain available to the creditor.
In which cases does imprisonment remain permitted?
Obligations arising from employment contracts and lease agreements remained outside the restriction under the exception, and claims whose source is not a contract, such as compensation for damage and what arises by operation of law, remained outside its scope in the first place. Determining whether a particular file falls under any of these depends on the enforceable instrument, not on the description of the transaction.
Does the amendment cover files opened before it entered into force?
Whether the amendment applies to existing files is one of the questions whose effect varies according to the stage the file has reached and the nature of the procedure taken in it. It is among the first things examined when assessing any existing file.
Does the amendment apply to maintenance?
Enforcement of maintenance (nafaqa) judgments has its own track before the body competent for it, and its framework differs from ordinary civil enforcement, as detailed in the article on the penalty for not paying maintenance in Jordan. It is therefore not correct to compare the position of a maintenance file with what has been settled in the Enforcement Law.
What if the debt arose from a cheque?
Transactions involving commercial papers may be accompanied by a track independent of the enforcement file, with its own nature, and this track is not affected by the restriction of imprisonment in the Enforcement Law. This is one of the things that most often surprises those who relied on the news headline alone.
Can the debtor close the file through a settlement?
A settlement is possible, but its value depends on its wording, the scope of what it covers and its timing, and on whether it actually closes the file or merely reschedules it. Agreements concluded in these files without precise drafting often turn into a later dispute more serious than the original one.
Legal Consultation
Enforcement files are among the files in which misunderstanding carries a direct cost to people's daily lives: on the debtor's side, relying on a news headline about "the abolition of debtor imprisonment" may lead to neglecting a file that in fact fell within what remained outside the restriction; on the creditor's side, misjudging the nature of his instrument may lead to choosing an enforcement track that does not get him to his right. Because the difference between the two positions is determined by the source of the obligation and by the enforceable instrument, not by the size of the amount, reading the file correctly is the first thing on which any position is built. For specialist legal consultation in enforcement cases, or to read our related articles on enforcement of foreign judgments in Jordan and civil compensation under Jordanian law, you can contact Alabwini Law Firm.
