Lawyers Back Call For Overhaul Of Jury Pay, Exemptions

Sydney Morning Herald

Wednesday January 9, 2008

Andrew Clennell State Political Editor

PAY for jurors should be at least doubled and "archaic" rights for people in certain professions or circumstances to get out of jury service should be lifted in an attempt to get the best possible people on juries, lawyers' groups said yesterday.

The Law Society and Bar Association have called on the State Government to implement proposals on jury selection that the Law Reform Commission has presented to the Attorney-General, John Hatzistergos, saying changes were long overdue. The society's president, Hugh Macken, said the fact that of 119,414 people summoned to juries each year in NSW only 9319 (or 8 per cent) served was reason enough to support the proposed reforms, revealed in the Herald yesterday.

The report recommended the lifting of widespread exemptions applying to people over 70, pregnant women, health professionals, lawyers, mining managers, clergy and people who live more than 56 kilometres from the court.

Mr Hatzistergos said he would call for submissions on the proposals - which also include a call to review lifting the daily jury allowance from $86 to $116 - and was likely to make changes later this year.

But he indicated he was prepared to speed through at least one of the proposals - that the Court of Criminal Appeal be given the right to review decisions by a judge to abort trials because of alleged prejudicial media coverage. In the past, politicians have found themselves at the centre of such controversies after making comments.

Mr Hatzistergos said reform in this area was a "key priority" and he was "hopeful of taking a proposal regarding this matter to cabinet shortly".

The most notorious case in recent times involved the convicted child murderer Leslie Alfred Camilleri in 1997. A District Court judge controversially found that comments by the then police minister, Paul Whelan, that pedophiles could strike up to 37 times were prejudicial to Camilleri's trial involving child sex charges and he was released on bail.

He went on, with Lindsay Beckett, to abduct and murder the Bega schoolgirls Lauren Barry and Nichole Collins.

Mr Macken said the report had not gone far enough in advocating payment increases to jurors and there needed to be a "very, very substantial increase". He said it should be up to the Government, not employers, to make up the shortfall that jurors faced from leaving their job to take part in jury service.

Mr Hatzistergos's office said $7.1 million was spent on jury service last financial year.

The Bar Association's president, Anna Katzmann, SC, welcomed the recommendation to make lawyers eligible for juries, saying "the old excuse that lawyers may be more persuasive or that their fellow jurors may have greater regard for the views ... is simply patronising".

The acting Opposition Leader, Andrew Stoner, said the Opposition supported all of the report's recommendations, bar the proposal to end the exemption of health professionals. The president of the NSW branch of the Australian Medical Association, Andrew Keegan, agreed, saying: "If you limit the ability of doctors to get exemptions, you take them away from their patients."

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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