Juries

Every person between the ages of 18 and 70 who is registered as an elector is qualified and liable for Jury Service. Certain categories mentioned below are disqualified, while others are ineligible for Jury Service.

A person on bail with an offence is not qualified for Jury Service. A person who knowingly serves on a jury while disqualified is guilty of an offence, subject to summary conviction and a fine not exceeding level 5.

The Chief Electoral Officer is responsible for preparing jury lists annually. Each year, for the purpose of selecting jurors, a fixed number denoted as “X” by the Chief Electoral Officer is selected. Persons who are disqualified, ineligible, or excused are not selected, and persons who have been selected within the preceding “Y” number of years are also not selected.

The Chief Electoral Officer is to arrange to send a list of the selected persons who reside in the district to the Juries Officer for each division. The Juries Officer shall serve the prescribed notice on these individuals.

The Divisional Jurors List contains the following information in respect of each juror in that division who is qualified and liable for jury duty/service: a person’s name, address, date of birth, national insurance number, and occupation.

When a court is to be held before which jurors may be required, the Juries Officer selects a sufficient number of names from the Jurors List and prepares panels of those names. A person’s name shall not be included in a panel unless their name appears in the Jurors List for the current year. If there is no such list, the previous year’s list may be used.

In preparing a panel of jurors to be summonsed, the Juries Officer shall take the names of the jurors in numerical order from the Divisional Jurors List for the division in which the court is situated. If this list is exhausted, he shall select other jurors as required, in numerical order, from one or more other Divisional Jurors Lists.

In doing so, he shall consider the convenience of the persons to be summonsed, their respective places of residence, and the desirability of selecting jurors who reside within a convenient daily travelling distance for a relevant division. The relevant division is as per the Magistrates Court Act.

A jury summonsed shall be served 10 days before the date on which the juror is required to attend. It is to be accompanied by certain notices. If it appears to the Juries Officer at any time before the first day on which the juror is required to attend that their attendance is unnecessary or can be dispensed with, he may withdraw the jury summons.

For the purpose of assisting the Juries Officer in ascertaining persons who, when summoned to attend, have not attended, at the commencement of the sitting of a court in which persons are summoned as jurors, the court shall, whether or not there is any business requiring the impaneling of a jury, call over the panel prepared by the Juries Officer and mark the names of persons who attended and answered when called.

The judge may, if he thinks fit, divide any panel of jurors returned to that court into two or more sections. He may excuse attendance on specific days during the sitting for all the jurors who appear on any one or more of the sections.

When a person summoned to serve as a juror applies to be excused during the entire sitting or a particular period or trial, the judge or court may excuse that person if they fit certain categories or if there is otherwise a good reason, as determined by the judge.

A person summoned may apply to have their service as a juror deferred, and the judge may grant such a deferral.

Where, on the calling over of the panel or otherwise, the judge of any court is satisfied that a person summoned as a juror is disqualified or ineligible or not qualified for Jury Service in the concerned court, he shall discharge the summons and inform the jury officer. If it appears that, in the case of a person summoned as a juror, there is doubt about their capacity to serve effectively due to physical disability, the person may be brought before the judge. The judge is to determine whether the person should act as a juror or not.

The jury to try the issue is selected by ballot in open court from the panel for the selection of the panel of persons summoned for Jury Service at the time and place in question. The jurors whose numbers are selected by the ballot shall, subject to all just challenges and objections, be jurors to try the issue for which they are summoned.

When a jury has been selected to try an issue, the courts, with the consent of both parties, may try any other issue with that jury. They may set aside any member of that jury whom the parties consent to withdraw or who is justly challenged or excused by the court. Another member selected by a ballot may try that other issue with the reconstituted jury.

No challenge to the panel is allowed for any cause except partiality, fraud, or willful misconduct of the Juries Officer. Challenges to the panel or to any juror’s recourse are tried by the judge in the High Court.

Both the plaintiff and defendant may respectively challenge up to six jurors without cause. If there is more than one plaintiff or defendant, the total number of challenges without cause by the plaintiffs on one hand and the defendants on the other hand shall not exceed six.

A person arraigned on indictment might challenge any juror or jurors for cause. The prosecution may challenge any juror or jurors for cause. Challenges to jurors for cause are tried by the judge before whom the accused is to be tried.

The judge, at the request of the Crown (but not of a private prosecutor), may order any juror to stand by until the panel has been gone through. Hearings for challenges for cause shall be in camera or in chambers.

Want of qualification shall not be a cause of challenge to any person whose name is on the Jurors List. No challenge should be taken to any juror on the ground that he is not duly summoned. For the purpose of the proceedings before a Jurors List with whom jurors have been impaneled shall be conclusively presumed to have been validly prepared.

If, for reasons of non-attendance of jurors or any challenge, there are insufficient numbers of jurors, the court shall direct the Juries Officer to nominate 12 or seven other persons who are present or otherwise available to serve on the jury. Persons nominated shall be selected from their number by ballot and added to the jurors summoned to make up the required number. Jurors so selected may be challenged.

During a criminal trial, the judge may, at any time, whether before or after the jury has been directed to consider its verdict, permit the jury to separate. In the course of the trial in the High Court, on any issue, the jury may, at the discretion of the judge, be detained during an adjournment of the court, other than an adjournment at the termination of the proceedings for the day.

Where, in the course of a criminal trial, a member of the jury dies or is discharged due to incapacity caused by illness or other reasons, and the number of jurors is not reduced below nine, the jury shall remain properly constituted.

A judge may, at his discretion, at any stage in the course of a civil trial, discharge the jury or any member. The trial may continue with the consent of the parties without a jury.

When, in the course of a trial, a member of a jury dies or is discharged due to illness or other causes, the jury may, at the discretion of a judge and as long as its numbers do not fall below six (or with the consent of the parties, four), be considered as duly constituted.

Jurors who have been sworn may, at the discretion of the judge, be provided free of charge with reasonable refreshments and meals at any time before giving their verdict.

At the conclusion of the trial of an exceptionally exacting nature, the judge may direct that the members of the jury be excused from further Jury Service for a period that he thinks fit.

A person who completes a return, refuses without lawful neglect to complete a return, or willfully makes false returns to the Juries Officer shall be guilty of an offence, subject to summary conviction and a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale. When, without reasonable cause, a person duly summoned to attend on a jury does not attend or fails to present or willfully withdraws himself from the presence of the court, the court may impose a fine not exceeding £1000.

Persons must not disclose jury information other than with lawful authority. This applies to Electoral Officers, persons obtaining juror information in the course of their functions, persons providing services to the courts, and persons who are members of the Police Service. Contravention of this obligation is an offence that may be punished by summary conviction or conviction on indictment, with imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, a fine, or both.

Lawful Authority for Disclosure  There are several permitted disclosures.

The form of the jury oath is prescribed. A person who serves as a juror shall be entitled, in respect of their attendance, to payment of rates determined by the Lord Chancellor with the consent of the Treasury, by way of an allowance for travel and subsistence, and for financial loss incurred due to their attendance for that purpose, other than travel and subsistence expenses they would not otherwise be subject to and any loss of earnings or benefits under social security legislation that they would otherwise have received. Determination of the amounts and the manner of payments are to be made in accordance with the arrangements made by the Lord Chancellor.

No person is entitled to payment for service as a juror.

Verdicts and findings in proceedings are not invalidated or impeached solely because a person who is sworn as a member of or served in a jury in those proceedings was disqualified, ineligible, not qualified for serving, misnamed, misdescribed, or that their name was not on the Jurors List. This legislation applies, if modified, to coroner’s juries.

The following persons are disqualified from Jury Service:

• Persons who have been convicted by a court in the United Kingdom and sentenced to prison for five years or more or at Her Majesty’s pleasure.
• Persons who, at any time within the last 10 years, have served any sentence of imprisonment or detention, have been detained in a Young Person’s Centre, have had a suspended sentence of imprisonment or an order for detention passed on to them, or have had a Community Service Order.

Any person placed on probation in the United Kingdom, Channel Islands, or Isle of Man within the last five years is disqualified.

The following persons are ineligible for Jury Service:

• Persons holding any paid, judicial, or other office belonging to any court of justice in Northern Ireland.
• Lay magistrates, Justices of the Peace, Presidents, Vice-Chairmen, and Vice-Presidents and registrars or assistant registrars of any Tribunal.
• Barristers at law and solicitors, whether or not in actual practice.
• Solicitors’ clerks, students of the Inns of Court and Law Society of Northern Ireland, district solicitors’ clerks, DPP and members of staff, Chief Inspector of Criminal Justice Northern Ireland, officers of the Northern Ireland Office, Lord Chancellor’s Department, Officers of the Department of Justice, Court Security Officers, Governors, chaplains, and other officers of prisons, remand centres, juvenile justice centres.
• Probation officers, members of the probation board, police officers, and persons employed in any capacity with the privileges of persons in charge of a forensic science laboratory.
• Prisoner custody officers.
• Persons who, at any time within the last 10 years, have fallen into any of the above categories.
• Members of Naval, Military, Air Forces in the United Kingdom.
• Persons suffering from mental disorder.
• Persons unable to understand the English language.
• A range of persons excusable from Jury Service as of right, including peers, members of the Commons, members of the Assembly, representatives of the European Parliament, and a range of public officials.
• Persons with Holy Orders, ministers of religion, practicing members of a religious society or order the tenets and beliefs of which are incompatible with Jury Service.
• Professors and members of the teaching staff of a university or institution of further education and full-time teachers in any school.
• Masters of vessels, lighthouse keepers.
• The following persons who are actually practicing the professions and registered, enrolled, and certified under relevant legislation: medical practitioners, dentists, nurses, midwives, vets, pharmaceutical chemists.
• Persons between 65 and 70 years of age.