A History of the Enforcement of Judgments Office

In the 1960s, the then Lord Chief Justice and the Minister of Home Affairs, appointed a working party to consider the administration and the adequacy of the existing methods of enforcing judgments, orders and decrees of the courts in Northern Ireland.

As an outcome of the working group’s findings, radical changes were made to the Northern Ireland systems of debt recovery and possession of property: namely the system of under Sheriffs and Bailiffs was replaced by a centralised unit for enforcing judgments of the courts – The Enforcement of Judgments Office (EJO)

The Office was established in 1971 and in 1979 the Northern Ireland Court Service took over responsibility for its administration. The EJO’s powers and procedures are contained in the Judgments Enforcement (Northern Ireland) Order 1981, and Judgment Enforcement Rules (Northern Ireland) 1981.

In more recent years the EJO has embarked upon a far-reaching modernisation programme. A new computer system was installed in 2001 and in 2002 the Office carried out a series of improvement projects under the Growth and Change Programme.  This work is continuing.

October 2003 saw the structure of the Office change when the ‘One Process’ approach to tackling the workload was adopted. This involves one team dealing with a case from the initial application to closure, as opposed to the former procedure were a case would be transferred between three separate departments within EJO in its lifespan.

The Office received recognition for the improvements made when it was presented with a Bronze Award in the Northern Ireland Quality Awards Steps to Excellence Scheme 2003.
The EJO continues to strive for improvement in the pursuit of its vision to be an ‘Organisation of Excellence’.

To learn more about the work of the EJO then visit our Enforcement of Judgments section.