The dilemma: A senior member of my staff has been called up for jury service, which is going to cause the business problems. The employee is in the middle of a deal and the client would be very unhappy to lose the point of contact. Can I ask my employee to try to get out of serving?
Cary L. Cooper, Professor of Organisational Psychology and Pro VIce-Chancellor, Lancaster University
Do organisations believe in corporate social responsibility or not? For any organisation, being part of the community is not only about being environmentally friendly, engaging and sponsoring local community activities, behaving in an ethical way financially and to all its stakeholders, but also about giving back to the wider social community. For our legal system to flourish and to make the most balanced judgments, we need organisations to accept fully their responsibility in allowing employees to participate in the judicial process.
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I would encourage the employer to allow the employee to take up the jury service responsibility on the basis that organisations should honour their social responsibility; and, secondly, on the grounds that avoiding the duty might entail a fabricated excuse, given that a business problem would probably not be an acceptable reason for avoiding jury duty. The latter behaviour would undermine further the ethical position of the organisation.
Peter Talibart, global head of employment, Norton Rose, www.nortonrose.com
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Jury service is a public duty. Unless someone is disqualified, has the right to be excused or have their jury service deferred, the employer must release the individual.
Any person summonsed for jury service can apply to be excused for “good reason”. Good reason may include the needs of the person’s employer. But in practice such applications will be considered only for exceptional circumstances.
An individual may be excused from jury service automatically if he or she has served as a juror in the previous two years. Members of Parliament or of the European Assembly, practising and registered members of the medical or other similar professions and persons more than 65 years old are also automatically excused. Jury service can be deferred and most applications for deferral are granted. Jury service can be deferred only once, up to a maximum of 12 months from the original date.