Law and morality are, as they have always been, deeply intertwined. Much academic work has been dedicated to the moral assumptions underlying criminal justice reform, tort reform, and a number of other specific legal areas. Bankruptcy, heavily code-based as it is, is no exception. From the earliest days of gemstones as a form of currency, debtors and creditors have been at odds about what to do about those who cannot repay their loans. Since the establishment of formal bankruptcy systems, there has been contentious discourse over who gets to use those systems.
This Comment traces the moral judgments made about debtors surrounding recent bankruptcy reforms in England and the United States: the introduction of the Debt Relief Order and the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, respectively. Beginning with the shared history of these two schemes, through their divergence and recent reforms, tracing the development of the two systems reveals key beliefs by decision-makers in each. Ultimately, the two pieces of reform were driven by differing prevailing views about what kind of relief consumer debtors deserve and what the limits of that relief should be.
