“Thirty years ago there stood, a few doors short of the church of Saint George, in the borough of Southwark, on the left-hand side of the way going southward, the Marshalsea Prison, (a) close and confined prison for debtors … It had stood there many years before, and it remained there some years afterwards; but it is gone now, and the world is none the worse without it.”

— Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

It’s an abhorrent and anachronistic practice, literally a Dickensian one. For Bermuda to still be jailing debtors for failing to meet their financial obligations in the 21st century is as senseless and entirely self-defeating a policy as any imaginable.

In certain instances existing legislation effectively criminalises hardship in Bermuda. And with both the genteel and harsher forms of poverty on the rise since the local economy took a swan dive six years ago, any number of otherwise law-abiding Bermudians have found themselves before the courts — and behind bars — for the offence of being behind on the bills.

Last year taxi driver Barclay Carmichael highlighted both the absurdity and overkill which can result when the legal system relies on outdated laws to contend with a raft of contemporary social and economic issues.

Mr Carmichael was faced with the possibility of incarceration for non-payment of membership fees for the mandatory GPS taxi service introduced in Bermuda several years ago. Contacted by a court bailiff in May, 2013 he was and ordered to pay up $700 or face 14 days in prison. He paid. But he was summoned back before the Civil Court some months later to face further orders to pay another $1,300 of the total $4600 still in arrears and was once again faced with the prospect of jail time if the money was not immediately forthcoming.

Ultimately he reached an agreement with BTA (Dispatchers) Ltd which allowed him to pay $200 a week to clear the debt.

“I don’t have a problem with debt, but I don’t think I should be threatened with jail and made out to be a criminal over a civil matter,” said Mr Carmichael. “This is not the time to be dragging people through a court system for debt with the economy the way it is and showing very little signs of improvement.

“The committal warrant is a weapon that they use against you, it says pay up or else.”

With so many people out of work he said it’s time to “remove the threat of jail for non- payment of bills from Bermuda’s law books.”

And he is absolutely right, of course.

It is actually long since past time for Bermuda to put an end put to this grim business. Opposition Member of Parliament Wayne Furbert is to be congratulated for tabling draft legislation in the House of Assembly last week which seeks to do just that.

Whether Mr Furbert’s bill passes in its current form or whether Government adopts and enhances it in what would be a welcome demonstration of bipartisanship, clearly there is a most pressing need to repeal redundant and outdated laws relating to debtors.

As the advocacy groups The Coalition For The Protection of Children and The Centre For Justice have both underscored, the economic downturn has most severely affected those who were already struggling to put bread on the table and Bermuda’s laws relating to personal bankruptcy are so inordinately complex they require lawyers on substantial retainers to navigate. So the threat of prison time for debtors invariably falls disproportionately on the most vulnerable in our society.

There are, of course, always going to be cases involving negligent non-payment, obstruction or outright fraud and those guilty of such offences should still continue to be treated firmly by the courts. But those provisions of our legal code which penalise the poor simply for being poor must be revoked as a matter of urgency.

Bermuda will be none the worse without them.