A Judgment Debtor in Garnishee Proceedings in Nigeria: To Be Seen or to Be Heard?

All other forms of judgment require execution to become realizable apart from declaratory judgments that cannot be enforced. The garnishee procedure is a legally cognizable method of enforcing or executing money judgments in Nigeria. The garnishee method is incidental to the judgment pronouncing the debt. Garnishee proceedings purport that money belonging to a judgment debtor in the custody of a third party (the garnishee) is attached by a judgment creditor to liquidate the judgment sum. The garnishee proceeding is sui generis in nature, and for a judgment debt to be attached under garnishee proceedings, such must either be due or accruing to the judgment debtor. Judicial decisions over the years have limited the rights of a judgment debtor in garnishee proceedings. The position has always been that a judgment debtor even with his pecuniary interest in the action can only be seen and not be heard. Recently, our courts however, have taken a detour from this seemingly hard-line position and arrived at a more indulgent position. This current judicial attitude now embraces the judgment debtor and his rights wholly like any other party in garnishee proceedings. This paper examines the fundamentals of garnishee proceedings in Nigeria, the status of a judgment debtor in a garnishee proceeding, the old and new positions of the court as to the right of a judgment debtor to be heard in garnishee proceedings and other incidental matters.