The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) said it hopes Tuesday’s Constitutional Court judgment on emoluments attachment orders (EAO) “will provide guidance to the courts and ameliorate the human rights violations that are currently occurring”. The matter‚ the commission said in a statement‚ will address whether “this form of debt collection strikes a constitutionally compliant balance between the rights of creditors to recover debts and the rights of debtors who are subject to such processes”.“The matter was brought by a group of low-income farmworkers living in Stellenbosch who had fallen into arrears‚ and had their salaries attached by the micro-lenders through…EAOs to the value of R1.6-billion‚” it explained. “In July 2015‚ the Western Cape High Court found certain sections of the Magistrates’ Court Act (MCA) 32 of 1944 to be inconsistent with the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Act (1996).” Tales of indebted misery clash with lenders' versionsA woman walked quietly out of the court while Judge Siraj Desai and advocate Piet Louw continued to debate the concept of "free choice" in the context of borrowing money.The MCA permits “the attachment of a debtor's earnings and obliges his employer (the garnishee) to pay out of such earnings specific instalments to the judgment creditor or his attorney”‚ which the court found “to be invalid to the extent that they fail to provide for judicial oversight over the issuing of an emolument attachment order against a judgment debtor”.“Further‚ it had been held that in proceedings brought by a creditor for the enforcement of any credit agreement to which the National Credit Act 34 of 2005 applies‚ section 45 of the MCA does not permit a debtor to consent in writing to the jurisdiction of a magistrates' court outside that that in which that debtor resides or is employed‚” the SAHRC said.Debtors and slated law firm await garnishee case upshotIn the matter University of Stellenbosch Legal Aid Clinic and Others v The Minister of Justice and Correctional Services and Other‚ the SAHRC‚ which joined the matter as amicus curiae‚ asked the Constitutional Court to confirm the high court’s declaration of the constitutional invalidity of sections of the MCA.The SAHRC said “any deprivation of wages/income had a detrimental effect on a number of human rights”. ..