State Government's jury laws already working

• New statistics show big drop in people not attending jury duty since new laws
• WA juries more representative as a result

The number of people not attending jury duty because of an excuse has dropped 43 per cent because of the introduction of new laws by the State Government.

Attorney General Christian Porter said he was pleased the Government's legislation had provided such a positive and immediate effect on Western Australian juries.

"The impact of the new jury duty laws has meant WA juries are now more representative than they have ever been," Mr Porter said.

The Department of Attorney General's figures are based on an assessment of the last 7.5 months from implementation of the new laws in July 2011 to February 13 2012, compared to the same period in 2010-11.

The figures reveal that before the Government's reforms, almost three-quarters of people called up for jury duty were excused, whereas now only about one-third are exempted.

The percentage of those summonsed to jury duty who attended in the first instance was 10,786 (23 per cent) in 2010-11. The number of people who now attend at first instance, or who will attend at a deferred date, has increased to 22,232 (57 per cent) in the 2011-12 period.

The total number of people excused for the period July 2010 to February 2011 was 34,409 or 73 per cent of those summonsed for jury duty.  For the corresponding period July 2011 to February 2012 this dropped dramatically to 11,902 people excused or 30 per cent of those summonsed for jury duty.

The number of those who did not attend because they did not respond at all to the summons has reduced from 1,792 to just 762 people.

Fact File

• Prior to Govt changes, any person with hardship issues given excusal, not a deferral
• Number of people excused includes those automatically exempt, for example, lawyers
• Summary of statistics is attached

Attorney General's office  - 6552 5600

Summary of Statistics