Our justice system. Part 2

Hi again,
Back for round two?

This is not as vaguely sarcastic as the previous post, because to be honest I was quite interested in the whole affair. I haven't been in a district court ever before, so seeing the 'inside' is quite an eye opener and all quite structured,

• Yes there is a lot of waiting around, but only because there are legal processes occurring in the background that jurors have no need to see.
• The juror pool was not (as I had wondered) entirely made up of stay-at-home mums and the unemployed; it seemed to be a fairly good representation of NZ.
• The intro video was actually worth watching, and not horribly cheesy.
• The jury officer used an actual rotating ballot box to select the jury panel (two groups of 50 people)
  

And it was tense.

I don't know what it is, but waiting to have your name called out of a random ballot and list is surprisingly blood pumping. Waiting to see who gets challenged (and trying to guess why) is like an advanced class in people-watching.

However, I didn't get picked for a jury today, so my tour of the judicial system ended at 11am.

I will leave you with two statistics though:

1. the jury that was picked was: female-4, male-8
2. jurors that swore on a bible were-3, and not-9

Should we be surprised with number 2? Dismayed? Where is NZ in reality?
:(

The Lord God has told us what is right and what he demands:
"See that justice is done, let mercy be your first concern, and humbly obey your God."
Micah 6:8

Our justice system. Part 1

Hello again,
Tomorrow I begin a scheduled week of jury service. I'm quite looking forward to it, as I haven't been 'selected' before. Everyone who has, recommends to bring a good book.

Having read the instructions there are a couple of idiosyncrasies that are worth mentioning:

1. Payment
A juror gets paid $31 per half day, or $62 a day (plus travel)
Expected times are 9am-5pm, with an hour lunch - giving you a standard 8hr work day
This gives the princely sum of $7.75/hr (or if you only want 7 hours and unpaid lunch, $8.86)

The NZ minimum wage is $12.50...

2. Governor General
You can't be a juror if you are the Governor General.
Fair enough, the representative of the Queen isn't really suitable.

However...

Do they have to mention it on the juror information sheet? There is only one Governor General after all, it should be easy to figure out.

Ergo; either the Governor General is particularly poorly informed; or the Ministry of Justice is a bit obsessive-compulsive.

I forsee the Hon. Sir Anand Satyanand opening his jury summons with a groan, then after reading the information sheet, he high-fives his secretary once he finds he is excused.
Possibly unlikely.

I expect more oddities tomorrow, so there will probably be a Part 2. Don't expect a case report though - justice is blind.