Clendon David: Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Clendon David: Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 22 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2298. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a short call on this Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill. I think we would all agree that the basic principle of using juries does not need defending. The idea of a panel of one’s peers sitting in judgment or consideration of one’s innocence or otherwise has got a very long history. It is well established well respected and I think that certainly participation in jury service is an expression of our rights and indeed our responsibilities. It is a form of engagement in civil society that I think is valuable and entirely valid. This bill does make some relatively minor amendments but it does make one or two useful amendments as well and for the third time this evening the Greens will be supporting this Government measure which might cause some members of the Government to go and have a lie-down to get over it. But I assure you that by Thursday normal service will be resumed and we will be critiquing the Government’s Budget very vigorously. That is something for you to look forward to.  
More seriously we do see value in some of the provisions of this bill. It seeks to protect to some extent the integrity or at least the perception of the integrity of the jury system to the extent that it does either exclude or defer some participation and it looks at issues around the potential for people to be excused either temporarily or indeed permanently. The question of disqualifying a person who has been subject to a period of home detention of some 3 months or longer did give us some reason to consider that fairly carefully but on balance we see that this provision brings in line people on home detention with those who have a custodial sentence. In that sense given that in 1981 I think when the Juries Act the substantive Act was enacted home detention was much less commonly used and we do use it now in forms and for reasons that formerly might have attracted a custodial sentence that provision would seem sensible. It brings non-custodial home detention sentences more in line with custodial sentences in this context and that would seem to be a reasonable thing to do.  
Equally allowing for jury service to be deferred for a person who is currently serving a sentence of home detention of 3 months or indeed up to 3 months again seems sensible. I do not necessarily think that a person serving a sentence of home detention would not be a fit and proper person to sit on a jury. We absolutely oppose in principle denying people normal democratic participatory rights simply because they are inmates which is why we did actively and vigorously oppose the very poor piece of law that was passed I think earlier this year or late last year that denied all prisoners the right to vote. That was a retrograde step and one which we continue to regret. In this instance however the idea of deferring the participation of a person on a short home detention sentence I think is more about the perception. There could be public unease at the thought of somebody currently serving a sentence also sitting on a jury at the same time and I think we need to respect that. So on balance we have no particular difficulty with that provision given that that person at the completion of their 3-month sentence does have the right—and again the responsibility—to sit on a jury and to participate.  
 The bill allows for the permanent excusal—the word has been used and I will adopt it though I am not sure it is a real word—of people by reasons of chronic ill health or disability or of people over the age of 65. We are aware that this excited quite a lot of opposition—in particular the question of the age of 65 being appointed at which people could choose to permanently excuse themselves from jury service. Different organisations and individuals suggested it was ageist said it was paternalistic and said it was excluding an increasingly important demographic but I think the key to it is that it is a voluntary thing. We would utterly resist any imposition of a barrier to participation on juries on the basis of age disability or illness but in this instance it is a voluntary thing. It is fair to say that for some people with severe disabilities it could be extremely difficult for them to participate actively on a jury and they ought to have the right to be excused.  
Certainly I think we will have to take care that this provision to allow for permanent excusal does not somehow morph into an expectation that we need not provide for the possibility that people with disabilities for example might choose to actively participate. We must always be alert to the fact that a person’s disability must not in any way exclude them from taking the choice to participate in a jury as does any other citizen.  
I have mentioned in passing that I do agree I think with the Labour Party minority report which suggested that perhaps we need a sort of second-chance provision for people particularly over the age of 65 who have chosen to take the permanent excusal route but who might think better of it. One can easily imagine a person in their mid to late 60s perhaps suffering a spate of ill health or some other life event that really does not put them in a mind to sit on a jury who might take this permanent excusal road but then live to regret it some short time later and a year or two later might wish to participate again. I think it might be helpful to consider at the Committee stage an amendment that might allow a person to take back the right to be a participant after excusal on the basis of age or disability—whatever it might be. I suggest that that sort of an opportunity to change one’s mind might be something that would not be exercised routinely or often but I think it would do the amendment no harm to at least make provision for somebody simply to change their mind—for their situation to change for their health to improve; whatever it might be—and to allow them a second chance at this participation in a very important civil service.  
I think the second part of the bill—the second major part of the bill—at least talks about protecting the jurors’ personal details their address and other details. Mr Goff has quite clearly articulated the difficulty with endeavouring to make jurors’ details absolutely secret. In one sense it is not desirable that people should feel the need for absolute secrecy. It is after all a jury of one’s peers. People should be able to sit on a jury with a degree of security knowing that it will not cause any ill effect to them. There was however one instance where a person defending himself did get the opportunity to cause some discomfort to members of a jury when he was able to write to them directly at their home address. That could give people considerable cause for concern and quite legitimately so. So to the extent that this bill does endeavour to put in place another layer of security and another layer of protection for people whose details might otherwise be readily available it is something we can quite happily support—though again it is only a partial remedy and I am not sure any of us could come up with an absolutely ideal outcome on any of this.  
 I think in passing that there are things that this bill does not address that it could usefully address and one of those would be compensation for jurors. I did once serve on a jury and at that time I had the luxury of an academic salary. I was able to sit on a jury for some 5 or 6 working days and suffer no material cost. I think there was $20 or something and one’s bus fare was provided. To me it was irrelevant; I was in a situation where I was able to participate. That is not the case for people who might be working part-time or working on an hourly rate. I think that as a general principle people ought not to suffer any material disadvantage or loss through serving on a jury and I think it unfortunate that the opportunity was not taken in this bill to address that very real difficulty particularly for people on low incomes or fixed incomes or for people who do not have the luxury as I said of a salary or a secure financial background.  
With those slight reservations we are nevertheless supporting this bill and will continue to do so. Thank you.