Updated Package: Template application to be excused from Jury Duty

Since 2018, the Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA) NSW has been assisting members and their staff with their applications to be excused from jury duty.

This has not been about shirking our individual civic duties, but is a necessary reaction given the severe labour shortages for skilled educators and teachers.

And the temporary closures of interstate and international borders due to COVID-19 have made it worse for early childhood education and care services’ recruitment of new and replacement staff.

ACA NSW has now updated its more-successful-than-not template package for members to send to The Sheriff and the magistrates/judges so that they or their staff can be temporarily excused from jury duty.

The NSW Attorney-General (the Hon Mark Speakman SC MP) has also been asked again to revisit this issue, especially in the context of Section 14A of the Jury Act 1977:

14A What constitutes good cause for the purposes of an exemption from jury service:

       For the purposes of this Act, a person has good cause to be exempted or excused from jury service if –

(a) jury service would cause undue hardship or serious inconvenience to the person, the person’s family or the public, or

(d) there is some other reason that would affect the person’s ability to perform the functions of a juror.

PUBLISHED: 24 MAY 2021