Coercion

 Hi guys, for this week I learn about the topic of coercion. If you are not familiar with this word, you can just simply search for it in google. However, you may not be able to understand it without any further explanation from anyone who is more knowledgeable about it such as legal practitioners, law lecturers and the others.

 

According to section 15 of the Contract Act 1950 (CA), coercion may be defined as as an act of committing threat which forbid by Penal Code, unlawful detain or threat of property and causing force of a person to enter an agreement. In my view this provision do help people to get justice when having a contract because sometimes people have to follow other party without his intention to enter, in order to protect the objective of a contract.

There are some elements that need to be fulfilled in order to apply coercion which are the coercion must be the committing of an act forbidden by the Penal Code, the coercion must be the unlawful detaining or threatening to detain any property and the act of coercion must be carried out with the intention of causing any person to enter into an agreement. One of the case is illustrated about coercion and the case is Muthia v Muthu Karoppa [1927]. This case is about an agent refused to hand over he account books of the business, at the end of his term in office, to the new agent unless the principal freed him from the liability in respect of his agency . The principal executed a release deed under which the agent was freed from liability. The court held that the release deed was voidable at the option of the principal. As he was made to execute the release deed under coercion. In this case the consent was obtained by unlawfully detaining the property which is the account book, of the principal.

To make it easier to be understand, the example of coercion is A force B to agree buying A's car with prescribed prices or else B will suffer something bad in future. This make B to enter an agreement without consensus. In this condition, B can get back his right to what he is not willing to enter.

Moreover, section 65 of Contract Act provides for the deceive party to get restored what he lose as equal as what the other party get benefits from the agreement. This provision is sufficient into condition of voidable contract while section 66 of Contract Act has the same content but it suffice for a void contract. In short, we can understand that the purpose of this provision is to protect the objective of a contract which not entered voluntarily by such party.

Okay, so far that is all for this week. Please enjoy and thank you.😁