Financial hit of jury service

[Pheasantsfeather]

I've just been summoned for jury service. Checked the terms and conditions and our company will grant special leave to attend but you are unpaid. You can claim £64 per day back in expenses. My take home per day is three times that.

I am fully supportive of why I need to do it, but I can't believe I'm expected to take such a financial hit. If it were to go on for the full 10 days, I will be over £1000 out of pocket. I can't afford that, we have nursery and holiday club fees for 3x children and a mortgage to pay.

How can you be duty bound to do something that costs you so much in lost earnings?

My firm would make me take my own leave, or unpaid, to attend jury service. And my work would still be waiting for me. No one covers you.

Hence why, in the four times I've been called up I've dipped out. It's easy at the moment as I cite childcare issues.

Having said that, I don't have any faith in the jury system after seeing it in action (not me!). I refuse to serve as I don't believe randoms from the street are qualified to decide someone's fate where most evidence isn't even allowed in court.

I'd be very annoyed to get called for jury service. I'm a sahm so I wouldn't lose wages, but it would have a huge impact on my dcs extracurriculars. We could pay for childcare but that would just be supervising them after school and wouldn't cover the ferrying around to various activities which have been booked for the term (so we'd have already paid) or supporting practice, homework and exam prep. It would require a nanny/tutor to replace the sort of support I provide and that couldn't be found at short notice, and wouldn't be covered financially.

I got called once decades ago but I was receiving medication for mental health issues and I was excused when I told them. Haven't been called since so I'm hoping there's some kind of block on my name!

Insurance against loss of earnings due to jury duty is a thing; it's often included in policies for self-employed people, and even sometimes in home insurance policies More would perhaps choose to insure against the risk were they aware of it, so my suggestion is that companies that don't pay full salaries to employees on jury duty should have to automatically enrol those whose salaries would not be covered by the maximum rate into an insurance scheme and deduct the premiums from their pay (unless they opt out). The sensible choice (for most people) would become the default, just as with private pensions.

[Edit: Sorry, meant to be a reply to "Is that a thing?"]

DH is self-employed and, as well as the huge financial hit, he'd need to fly back to the UK from wherever he is in the world and walk out on his client! How is that even meant to be feasible?

YANBU I'm dredding being called up, I'm self employed, earn upwards of £750 a day - will get no pay too.

I did jury service for 16 weeks and fortunately my employer paid me. I then went off sick with stress afterwards as the case was so harrowing (child cruelty, neglect and murder of a baby). It still haunts me. We had zero preparation or support from the court.
In my opinion the jury system is not an effective way of serving justice. I could recount some pretty shocking stuff, except I can’t because I’m forever forbidden to divulge or discuss any details.
I am excused from jury service for 10 years due to the nature of the case but that is coming to an end very soon.
Jurors are not required to have even basic reading and writing skills and just because someone doesn’t have a criminal record doesn’t mean they are law abiding. So if you ever find yourself in court take a long hard look at the jurors as they could have all sorts of prejudices and extreme views. Or have minimal comprehension skills and not be equipped to even realise that they are in over their heads let alone ask for help.
it made me think of that guy who went for a job interview at the bbc and accidentally ended up being interviewed on live tv. Because that’s what it felt like to me and I’m reasonably well educated.
it’s a system that needs an urgent overhaul.

I experienced this. There were several Jurors who admitted to being unable to take notes as they didn't know what was important and as a result didn't know what to write. They relied on others who had taken notes to explain when in the Juror's room.

A panel of educated experts would be much more expensive. We are shockingly begrudging in this country about the money we spend on the CJS. We as a society think criminal barristers for example are overpaid, and yet ironically when I was practising I was expected to go to court for less than the jury expenses figure, which has generally been agreed on this thread to be a pittance.

If we begrudge the legal professionals earning a liveable wage (there’s a shortage of barristers partly due to simply not being able to survive) I don’t know where the money is coming from for expert panels.

(I’m sorry to jump on your post in a way, as there are many others I could have replied to as this is a topic I get very exercised about. Also I agree in part that we shouldn’t blindly assume jury is best, and we also shouldn’t just go for the cheapest option)

Agree with this.

Jury trials shouldn't be the bedrock of democracy. Loads of democratic countries don't have them.

It should be 3, 5 or 9 judges depending on the case intricacy and severity.

Judge training should be ongoing to include a week every 6 months to make sure they are up to date with anti bias training, disability rights, social issues including unconscious bias, class, race etc.

All the training possible, to be as fair and impartial as possible, on top of their hopefully diligent and professional legal education.

I would never want a trial by a jury of my so-called peers.

Most of the general public are too biased, prejudiced and. under educated to sit on a jury.

And this in itself means the juridical process isn't fair. Because it excludes certain members of society

What happens if you're self-employed? If I don't work I don't get paid. No way I could pay my rent!

I did it 24 years ago, 6 week murder trial. Unless something has changed, my company claimed my earnings back? There was a great canteen too. Very very interesting to do, I learned a lot.

My husband was retired , he wasn’t driving at the time so had to leave at 6 to do a bus-train-bus journey taking 2.5hrs each end of the day. His travel expenses were reimbursed but no meal allowance and no leaving the building once you’d signed in until the end of the day. No phones allowed and he was bored after the first 2 days- he did this for 3 weeks.
Afterwards he said he’d never have done it if he’d known how utterly tedious it was.

@FrangipaneMincies I'm self-employed so wouldn't get back any loss of earnings. Which would be a substantial amount. I wouldn't be able to afford to pay the rent.

Luckily my employer covers this & I’ve served twice. It’s all changed since Covid though (well in my area) we had to phone a number the night before to see if we were needed or not & if we were picked at random, we got a call the next afternoon.

I had to turn up on the Tuesday morning (as got randomly selected) I was then picked for jury but rest were sent home & had to phone in again the next day. If there isn’t a new jury on 3rd or 4th day, that whole bunch will be dismissed.

there’s a high chance you mightn’t have to go in at all. Worth trying for to be excused but they might say you need to do it anyway

The problem with that is even though it’s great not to have to waste time going in, it means they avoid paying you even the minimal amount, and it may not be as simple as meaning you can just turn up at work as normal and be paid. For example if work rotas have been done so it’s all covered, with other people already in and expecting to be there and be paid. Or you’ve sorted out extra child care. Or rearranged work appointments.

I found it very disruptive being in and out of work at short notice - and I at least was paid by my employer (though I had to claim the allowance and that was deducted from my pay).

also an previous poster made mention that it’s cheaper to have extra jurers than needed as that’s cheaper than a trial not going ahead. Well only because they don’t include the true costs, eg when I was in there were several teachers and health care workers whose employers were taking on extra staff to back fill for us all to be sat there twiddling our thumbs. I think they staff it at a level way over the risk of not having enough jurers. I’d love to know if they’ve done any serious modelling of how many they could really manage with (speaking as someone who spent a lot of their career having to manage that sort of balance).

If self employed it is possible to take out an insurance policy just in case. Albeit another expense.

I presume that just covers loss of earnings though. There's the potential to lose clients or a much longer piece of work.