The Magistrates' Courts (Maintenance Orders Act, 1958) Rules 1959

Jurisdiction as respects complaints for the discharge and variation of attachment of earnings orders

15.—(1) This Rule shall apply to a complaint for the discharge or variation of an attachment of earnings order except where the related maintenance order—

(a) is an affiliation order and jurisdiction is confined by paragraph (a) of subsection (2) of section eighty-eight of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, to courts having jurisdiction in the place where the person liable thereunder is residing;

(b) is an order made under section eighty-seven of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933;

(c) is an order made under section forty-three of the National Assistance Act, 1948.

(2) Where a complaint is made to a justice of the peace acting for the same petty sessions area as the court which made the attachment of earnings order and it appears to him that—

(a) the person in whose favour the attachment of earnings order was made, or

(b) the person liable to make payments under the related maintenance order,

is for the time being in some petty sessions area other than that for which the justice is acting, or that the complainant is the clerk of a magistrates' court acting for such other area, then, if it appears to the justice that the complaint may be more conveniently dealt with by a magistrates' court acting for that other area, he may cause the clerk of the court to send the complaint by post to the clerk of the other court and for that purpose shall write down the complaint if this has not already been done.

(3) On receipt by the clerk of a magistrates' court of a complaint under the preceding paragraph, he shall bring the complaint before the court and the court shall issue a summons requiring the person appropriate under subsection (4) of section twenty of the Act to appear before it, and shall hear and determine the complaint.