Are you being served

Choosing jury members can be a trial in itself as a Bay of Islands woman discovered late last year. She tells her story.

"Serving on a jury is a duty call that must be obeyed. But does the method of selection do justice to all?

Being away, I didn't get the first letter of summons and by the time I got back a second letter arrived saying I didn't respond to the first so now I had to report to the Kaikohe Court and if I didn't, I'd be liable for a $1,000 fine. Except the letter didn't mention the reporting time nor the address. It took two questioning emails to find out.

On the designated Monday about 60 of us awaited instruction and some had genuine reasons for not wanting to be there. One woman was the only care-giver for her recently paralysed mother who'd had a stroke. No excuse said the legal letter from Auckland. One man had a Kerikeri address but had lived 850 kilometres away for over six months. No excuse, he was told, he had to be there. From Masterton. Still, what else can you expect from a government department that hands out pamphlets outlining jury service with Chairman Mao and Hekia Parata look-alikes on the front cover?

We were an eclectic bunch. I wondered if the feet of the Kaikohe woman in Ugg boots would get hot later in the day. Another woman sighed a lot and barked instructions into a mobile. She said people at her work in Rawene couldn't make decisions without her. The word delegation sprung to mind.

Two hours later we filed in to the court room and the registrar acknowledged that getting to court can be a hardship and apologised on behalf of decision-makers in Auckland who don't understand rural distances. After giving our names we filed out again to wait for another hour before being told to go home and come back on Wednesday. A fair proportion lined up to say they simply couldn't do it and sure enough, two days later, a noticeably depleted gathering sat down to await further instruction.

The tea and coffee-making machine at the Kaikohe Court House had been broken a while back and not replaced. The registrar said 'youse' could write suggesting 'they' reinstate it but to whom to write we were not told.

About half an hour into another wait we filed back to the court room again and our names were hauled from a barrel. It's literally a lottery as twelve of us were called to become jurors while the others could go home. We sat facing the witness stand but side on to the judge, the lawyers, the registrar , the court cryer and a security guard. We felt exposed and a little nervous but acutely aware of our collective responsibilities as the formal proceedings commenced.

All but two of us took notes during the day. Those who didn't presumably relied on memory and when the trial was over we filed into the jury room, our home for however long an absolute majority decision would take.

Tea and coffee is provided here but the toilet is behind a paper-thin wall and embarrassingly within earshot of fellow jurors. The foreperson was chosen because she said she'd had some committee experience but early in the deliberations she blathered on about docking sheep until a few others brought her back to the point. Within a couple of hours we had all found the defendant not guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

When the decision was announced his shoulders dropped for a very brief instant. He didn't smile. His whanau in the viewing area looked more relieved than ecstatic.

Jury service is an imposition on one's lifestyle especially if the trial lasts more than, say, a week. Gripes at being away from work and family aside, it's a system we have to live with and it is a service. 'Our' jury fully understood the implications for all concerned and for the first time I appreciated what it must be like for the accused and others with a vested interest to await a collective decision from people they have seen but never met.

Whether Justice Department decision-makers understand the hurdles Far North residents face attending jury selection and service is another matter. Aucklanders have never had to catch a bus from Kerikeri, Kawakawa or Kaeo to Kaikohe Neither have we. There isn't one."