A Jury Duty letter came today for my daughter. She needs to fill it in, sign and return within 7 days. She is however studying abroad in Netherlands in 3rd yr of Uni and won't be home till end June. She can't fill it in for exemption as not here, are they likely to accept me phoning and explaining situation ?
I would imagine they will. Give it a go 🙂
Is she in the Netherlands right now? If so, she can't open the letter from there can she, she won't be able to open it until she comes back will she, so they can hardly expect a reply can they!
Well I thought about that, but she was happy for me to open it given that it had a sheriff court label on it. So now it's been opened seems easier to deal with it. Then again, seeing as she's studying law, maybe I should leave it and let her work it out as a 'case study' 😀
(Yes she's there right now)
Call up and speak to someone at the court and ask to defer, rather than not do it at all.
In my experience they are reasonable.
Its an office full of people phone them and explain as a qualified lawyer I can pull all sorts of shit by phoning the relevant people and telling them the truth.
Do lawyers do jury duty?
Yes lawyers police officers and judges do jury duty now.
Given that she's in her 3yr of a Law Degree she would love to do it, just kinda awkward from Maastricht !!
Yes lawyers police officers and judges do jury duty now.
We have a different legal system in Scotland. Both constables and lawyers are on the list of those ineligible for jury service.
If it's the same as in England she has the right to defer it once. She will need to give them a time when it will be possible and she'll be expected to attend when called the second time unless there's good reason.
I hope her jury duty isn't as big a disappointment as mine was.
Police officers doing jury service is daft, certainly local to where they live/work. When I worked in England a colleague had to do it. He was a custody sergeant. Each time he went into a courtroom he looked at the defendant then had to write the judge a note explaining who he was, that he knew the defendant, and knew exactly what he was there for. What a waste of time. As irc says, it's not allowed in Scotland, although I'm not sure a law student still at uni would be exempt? But as above, just ring or write to explain if you're too late to ignore it!
She's not a lawyer yet so her occupation isn't an issue. She should just tell them what the travel and accommodation expenses would be and they'll let her off.
being abroad might not be grounds for exemption - when I did jury service a guy in my jury was doing it for the third or forth time - on one of those occasions he'd being flying back from germany for jury service in glasgow. They paid his travel though so if it would be interesting for her to do it then why not.
Cheers irc I knew Scotland had a different legal system but it never occurred to me that the jury service eligibility did not change at the same time as England and Wales .
Some great info, have sent her this thread ! Cheers
Being abroad is grounds for exemption, I got called up when I was doing my sea time at college and got let off on that basis.I'm not aware of any limit on the amount of deferrals either.
Just fill it in with the truthful explanation and send it back. No one will bother their arse. They're not going to demand she come home for it and all the stuff about being legally required to do it is just to put folk off coming up with crap excuses.
IME they're pretty understanding. I had one forwarded from an old address late last year, and had to postpone as well as relocate it from a city I no longer lived in. I can't find the summons now but I'm pretty sure there had been more than seven days between it being sent and me receiving it; they wrote straight back and gave me suitable dates nearer to home. ringing them is still a good idea though.
I don't know if you'll have to send it to the Netherlands and back or not, but studying abroad will be more than a good enough excuse to defer.
Thanks all, I have filled form in on her behalf explaining situation. I signed it as myself with note 'father' rather than get in trouble for forging signature 😆
She is actually hoping to get a date for it once back, as once she is qualified she will be disallowed, so this is only chance and interesting 'professionally'