Ms Mitchell said West Coast juries were "kind of notorious" for not showing up, but it would seem jurors around the country are not much better.
Ministry of Justice figures showed 136,818 people were summonsed for jury service nationwide during the July 2013 to June 2014 financial year, with just under 30,000 ending up sitting up on juries.
District Courts general manager Tony Fisher said an estimated 12 per cent did not respond to jury summonses. Reasons included people simply ignoring summonses, or not receiving them as they had recently moved addresses.
However, some people did not attend because they were ineligible -- as in the case of MPs, police and the Governor-General.
Under section 32 of the Juries Act 1981 a person failing to turn up for jury service could be fined up to $1000.
Mr Fisher said fining someone was a judicial decision and rarely used. One person was fined under the provision last financial year, he said.
Figures showed 29,342 did jury service last year financial year, while 32,810 potential jurors were excused and 41,816 had deferrals granted.
Some reasons people provided to be excused or deferred from service included being aged 65 or over and having family commitments. Other excuses related to work, personal circumstances such as language difficulties, physical disabilities, previous excusal, religious beliefs and having attended jury service in the last two years.
Mr Fisher said jury service was an important civic duty and the ministry was grateful to everyone who participated.
"We do however recognise that many people have personal circumstances that make it difficult for them to attend at the time they are summonsed."
For that reason, the ministry summonsed more people than it needed and as a result almost always had a suitable juror pool to draw upon.
He said two key changes were made to the Juries Act 1981 in October 2010 to improve attendance rates.
Firstly, jury district boundaries were extended from 30km around each jury courthouse to 45km to increase the potential juror pool.
The second change was to allow summonsed jurors to apply to defer their service, once only, to a more convenient time rather than having to be excused outright.
Mr Fisher said the deferral system had allowed staff to be more proactive in discussing attendance with summonsed jurors.
"As part of this, people who have asked to defer service and have later applied not to attend, are less likely to be excused."
To defer service, a juror had to apply to the court registrar for a more convenient time within 12 months of their jury summons.
Mr Fisher said a person called up for jury service could apply to the court registrar to be excused from jury service if attendance would cause or result in undue hardship or serious inconvenience to that person or the general public.
Figures showed 3060 people had their excusals declined and 115 had their deferrals declined in the 2013/2014 financial year.
