Jury Duty - Employer wants my court payments

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#3076552 16-May-2023 00:51

Hiamie: This begs the question... what is the penalty if i were to simply ignore the summons to jury duty, and/or just not turn up?

Anyone know??

In theory $1000 fine, being rounded up by police and brought to court, potential even arrest and cell time if you refuse.

In practice, none at all.

Every now and then a media organisation does an official information act request to find out how many people don't turn up for selection, and how many fines were issued, the answer is something like 30% and 1 in the last 5 years or something silly like that.

It's not an instant fine, it requires appearing before a judge, which makes it completely impractical to deal with as the court schedules are so full already they don;t need more work. Judges don't even see the list of no-shows is my understanding unless so few turn up that a jury can't be formed, and then they send cops to try and round some up.

This happens exceedingly rarely, because of course it's the registrar's job to ensure they summonsed a large enough pool to account for no shows so that the selection can be completed.

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Scott3

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#3076652 16-May-2023 09:44

Handle9:
loceff13:

Still no excuse that it can't be in line with inflation, if this was acceptable in 2004..

No excuse for expenses not being in line with inflation? Expenses are actual expenses.

There are cap's on the expenses that can be claimed, that are problematic due to inflation.

Goodluck finding professional childcare for an under two for $80 a day...
Mileage rate used is roughly half if the IRD rate used by many employers.

Expenses you can claim

The court will help pay for some of your costs for attending jury service.

If you use your own vehicle to get to jury service, the court will pay you for your mileage. This is automatically calculated at a rate of 38 cents for each kilometre between your home address and the court.
The court doesn’t provide car parking. If you have to pay for parking, the court will pay you back. You’ll need to give the court a receipt for each day you attend court. For details about parking locations, see the specific court pages in the section Check if you need to attend.
For car parking reimbursements, when using pay and display, there will be a pop up message on the screen with a 4 digit code. You can use this code to claim back the cost of your parking online by going to my-receipt.com. Enter your 4 digit number and follow the instructions.
www.my-receipt.com(external link)
The court will pay you back if you need to take public transport to get to jury service. You don’t need to provide a receipt for public transport.
If you can’t get to court any other way, the court may pay for a taxi but you’ll need to ask the court first.
You can claim up to $80 each day, per child, for professional childcare and up to $40 each day, per child, for childcare help from a family or whānau member, friend or neighbour.

afe66

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#3076753 16-May-2023 11:34

My employment contract just says the employer will continue to pay me salary but all money I get for doing jury service must be paid to my employer.

Tinkerisk

4224 posts

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#3076895 16-May-2023 17:49

Rikkitic:

My age shields me but I would turn up if required to do so. I would then make clear that I am strongly opposed to the jury system in principle, which would probably disqualify me from sitting on one. The European system of expert judges instead of random amateur nose-pickers is infinitely better in my opinion.

There are also courts here that are staffed with honorary lay judges. The time spent is not reimbursed, only the costs incurred and the employer must release the appointed employee upon presentation of the court certificate. Those who are appointed can only refuse the job in very rare cases.

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MikeAqua

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#3077068 17-May-2023 09:31

mattwnz:

If they were required to pay the average daily earnings, then for high earning people that earn millions a year, it would cost a lot. The problem with earning a lot, is that many high earners also have high cost lifestyles, with expensive homes and mortgages. IMO all jurors should be paid the same, but i should be at the living wage. Expenses and the daily amounts they pay should be updated yearly with inflation. I don't know how someone who is paying $4000 a month or more on mortgage payments plus other costs could afford to do jury service, if their employer wasn't also paying them. You almost need some of of insurance to cover you incase you get called up.

It already costs a lot, it's just a matter of who pays. Currently either the person's employer continues to pay them (and gets no work in return), or they lose the income altogether. Someone is incurring the expense

What I'm saying is the govt should pay, because it's the govt that is conscripting the person to undertake work. If the govt had to pay the actual cost of the jury system, we might reconsider the whole system. Or we might just decide that it's fair that all taxpayers should cover the jurors lost income, because it's a service to all of society.

Mike

networkn

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#3077069 17-May-2023 09:36

MikeAqua:

It already costs a lot, it's just a matter of who pays. Currently either the person's employer continues to pay them (and gets no work in return), or they lose the income altogether. Someone is incurring the expense

What I'm saying is the govt should pay, because it's the govt that is conscripting the person to undertake work. If the govt had to pay the actual cost of the jury system, we might reconsider the whole system. Or we might just decide that it's fair that all taxpayers should cover the jurors lost income, because it's a service to all of society.

You know that if the Government pays, the Taxpayer pays, right?

No matter what happens, someone pays, there are no free lunches. There are just some ways that are less direct than others.

SepticSceptic

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#3077301 17-May-2023 23:33

Stuff had an article about the trial of a leading entertainer sex charges. 400 people summoned for jury duty, less than half showed up.

Trial expected to take 6 weeks.

That's a lot time out from your employment and receiving less than minimum wage for your efforts.

I couldn't afford to do that, nor would many other employed people.

https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/132069487/entertainment-industry-sex-crime-trial-adjourned-again-over-juror-noshows

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neb

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#3077302 17-May-2023 23:37

SepticSceptic: I couldn't afford to do that, nor would many other employed people.

I suspect that "they would hear explicit matters of a sexual nature” covering "rape, indecent assault, sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, assault with intent to commit sexual violation, attempted sexual violation, indecent assault" would be a much bigger factor in not turning up than the amount of money you get. I wouldn't want to be in that jury regardless of what the pay is.

frankv

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#3077359 18-May-2023 08:11

neb:
SepticSceptic: I couldn't afford to do that, nor would many other employed people.
I suspect that "they would hear explicit matters of a sexual nature” covering "rape, indecent assault, sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, assault with intent to commit sexual violation, attempted sexual violation, indecent assault" would be a much bigger factor in not turning up than the amount of money you get. I wouldn't want to be in that jury regardless of what the pay is.

My one instance of actual jury service was a historical incest case which pretty matched the above description, but only a little over a week in all. When I heard the charges the first time I thought "Oh, no!!!", but it wasn't any sort of incentive to try to get out of the jury. I was fortunate that my employer kept paying my salary, but if I'd had to do 6 weeks at $62/day it would have caused real hardship. It would also have caused real difficulty for my employer due to work that was already planned.

On a side note... the trial, whilst some of it was tough & disturbing to hear, was nevertheless interesting/educational and I guess enjoyable in a "fly-on-the-wall" voyeuristic view into a dysfunctional family sort of way... I had never imagined people could live like that. Bottom line: I'd do it again.

Bung

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#3077394 18-May-2023 09:53

I was on a jury for a single day trial. The actual offence isn't something you'd want to remember but the jury was an education. Be warned that if you ever end up on trial possibly half the jury will have automatically assumed you're guilty because why else would you be in court. The other thing was that the accused convicted himself by talking to much so it was easy in the end.

elpenguino

3419 posts

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#3077449 18-May-2023 11:10

neb:
SepticSceptic: I couldn't afford to do that, nor would many other employed people.
I suspect that "they would hear explicit matters of a sexual nature” covering "rape, indecent assault, sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, assault with intent to commit sexual violation, attempted sexual violation, indecent assault" would be a much bigger factor in not turning up than the amount of money you get. I wouldn't want to be in that jury regardless of what the pay is.

IME, when you're called, you might have an inkling of the cases before the court that week, but normally there's a pool of , say 150, and they make a few juries out of them. So there's no guarantee you'd be selected at all, let alone end up on any particular trial.

But yes, in essence, you're at the tail end of a whole system which works to clean up after the butt end of society.

You will not be sitting there and listening to happy stories.

But I'm glad I did it and also grateful my employer kept paying me. I agree with handle9 (I think it was) who said this is the cost of keeping a functioning society running.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

MikeAqua

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#3077455 18-May-2023 11:56

networkn:

You know that if the Government pays, the Taxpayer pays, right?

No matter what happens, someone pays, there are no free lunches. There are just some ways that are less direct than others.

The benefits of jurors' service accrue to all of society. Therefore, why not have the cost born by taxpayers?

Mike

elpenguino

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#3077470 18-May-2023 12:00

MikeAqua:

networkn:

You know that if the Government pays, the Taxpayer pays, right?

No matter what happens, someone pays, there are no free lunches. There are just some ways that are less direct than others.

The benefits of jurors' service accrue to all of society. Therefore, why not have the cost born by taxpayers?

Because not all taxpayers are equally well off and able to stand the cost. If lower paid people evade jury service on grounds of unaffordability, juries would tend to be made up of more well paid people.

The principle of the jury is that is randomly selected and diverse.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

lxsw20

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#3077478 18-May-2023 12:19

Realistically you're not judged by your peers, you're judged by those who have free time or couldn't find a way to get out of jury service.

MikeAqua

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#3077482 18-May-2023 12:37

elpenguino:

Because not all taxpayers are equally well off and able to stand the cost. If lower paid people evade jury service on grounds of unaffordability, juries would tend to be made up of more well paid people.

The principle of the jury is that is randomly selected and diverse.

By taxpayers pay, I mean have jurors paid their normal income by the govt. That means anyone could do jury service, without suffering financial hardship. Therefore, money wouldn't be a barrier to diversity at all.

Also, I don't think financial hardship in the face of several weeks of pretty much zero income, would be limited to low-income earners. People, on high incomes tend to have correspondingly high mortgage payments, insurance premiums, rates bills. They may be supporting people on low incomes (children studying, elderly relatives).

Mike

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