1.  Germany

Once again, the German system stands as a model of “fairness.”  It equalizes treatment of debtors and avoids substantial disparities among districts.  In Germany, every debtor is called upon to make the same predictable sacrifice:  turning over six years of nonexempt income, with rebates of portions of that income after the fourth and fifth years.  The calculation of each debtor’s contribution is based on an objective, universally known scale of exempt income.  While this scale demands slightly less of low-income debtors than higher-income debtors, at least the effect is uniform across the country.  The German system leaves very little discretion in the hands of local authorities to alter the balance of costs and benefits that each debtor can expect.   At least in terms of consistency across cases, the German system seems most likely to earn a consumer evaluation as “fair” and a legitimate source of social education.

2.  France

Wide variations in treatment of debtors from district to district plague the French system.  Broad discretion marks the French system from beginning to end, despite recent efforts to set uniform boundaries.   The commissions are in charge of drafting and negotiating payment plans, and local political functionaries comprise a majority of each commission.   This understandably leads to differences of opinion and approach and wide variances across districts.  First, despite imposition in 1999 of a minimum “floor” of exempt income that must be left to debtors, the budgets that commissions and courts impose on debtors in payment plans continue to vary widely.   Second, commissions differ sharply in their willingness to propose effective measures of relief in these plans.  Similarly, access to the “extraordinary” relief of partial discharge, as well as to a total discharge through the new process of “personal recovery,” is available only on the commissions’ discretionary recommendation.  These recommendations depend on vague standards; i.e., that the debtor’s financial situation qualify as “irremediably compromised.”   With no centralized control over these standards, differing approaches in different geographical areas are inevitable.  Although the French legislature has made inroads into the broad discretion of system administrators, it seems inevitable that lingering inequalities will result in a feeling of unfairness among debtors and non-debtor observers.  This threatens to rob the French system of legitimacy and educational impact.