Jury Service and the Inefficiencies of Public Services

A recent citation to attend jury service turned out to be a total waste of time and illustrated to me the inefficiencies of government-funded services.

Day One

On the first day I arrived 15 minutes ahead of time and waited with the other forty-or-so potential jurors outside my allocated court. The Sheriff Court is a large imposing 1980s block of a building. From the outside it appears about three storeys high, and is large in terms of both depth and breadth. The area I waited in was at one end of the concourse of the building. It was large and spacious; the cubic décor and fixtures were good quality and clearly well maintained and it looked like they hadn’t been changed in 20-odd years. Something tells me this building wasn’t cheap to construct in 1986.

I had heard that there is normally a lot of waiting involved in Jury Service so I came prepared with a book. After around a half-hour of waiting the enrobed Clerk came out of the court. The Court Clerk’s primary responsibility is to maintain the records of the court. They are usually legally qualified and administer the oath to witnesses and jurors. The Clerk informed us that they are in the midst of dealing with “some issues” and they should be around another “ten, fifteen minutes”. I am a terribly impatient person at the best of times. I either have to be moving or have some sort of media stream feeding my brain at all times. Up until this point I had avoided getting my book out, and had sufficed with listening to my iPod. The cynic in me was telling me the Clerk’s estimate was at best ambitious, and at worst an attempt at temporary appeasement for the waiting jurors. I reasoned that these people don’t really give a damn about the forty people waiting outside as they deliberate over relatively trivial matters in their daily legal games. They have no concept of the huge amount of human resource – and therefore money – stagnating outside. Their professional existence and their legal games are funded from what they subconsciously perceive to be an infinite source of funding: the UK tax payer. And so what if the majority of the people waiting outside would otherwise normally be sitting in work, or running their business instead of waiting in a corridor? Their jobs no doubt pail in comparison to the roles that these high-earning legal eagles undertake anyway….

So – another half-hour passed and the Clerk came out of the court and asked us to come in. As we filed into the empty room I saw the inside of a Scottish court for the first time in my life (thankfully). I was utterly underwhelmed by the room. Despite the 1980s décor that pervaded the rest of the court building, for some reasons I had visions of a large, grand, traditional court room with oak panels on the wall and a throne-like seat for the judge. Instead I saw a continuation of the bland 1980s theme set across a flat room about 40 feet by 40 feet. We filled most of the seats in the public gallery and sat as the Court Clerk started his induction to our role as potential jurors and to tell us about the case that we may be selected for.

Well, when I say started I really mean attempted to start. He began by warning us to get used to waiting around. He’s obviously used to impatient jurors so decided to get some expectation management in early. A man in his fifties with white hair was pottering around in the background. His stamping of God-knows-what and slamming of doors frequently reverberated around the room as the Clerk spoke to us. In the space of five minutes the phone rang three times. Each time it was for the Clerk – he managed to speak about an average of half a sentence before being interrupted again by the phone. The only sentence he successfully managed to complete was his warning to us to get used to waiting.

When the phone calls finally settled down and the clerk managed to complete a sentence or two he told us that the case had been thrown out of court – so we didn’t have to serve on the jury that day. “While we were there”, he said, “we might as well go through the induction”. So he explained how the court worked and what to expect as a juror. He came across as quite reasonable. Due to work commitments I was concerned that I could be put on case that could spill over into a second week. He allayed those fears by saying that he would warn us in advance if that was likely to happen and we could pull-out if really necessary. An interesting quirk is that once the case has commenced, the Clerk can only speak to us with a witness present. If we bump into him in the street and say 'hi' to him, he said he would ignore us and walk away. The Clerk spoke for around 20 minutes then told us we could leave.

Days Two, Three, Four and Five

You are allocated a telephone number to call for the court. You are supposed to call this in the evening after 6pm and it informs you of when you will be required the next day. So on the Monday evening I called up and was informed that I wouldn't be required the next day. So I went into work. You may be thinking 'that's not so bad, at least you can catch up on some work'? Well, as I'm a consultant and my current project is based 500 miles away - so my day in work was a waste of time.

I called the number on the Tuesday evening and was asked to attend a different court the next morning. I went along, waited outside for another 45 minutes then we were moved into a separate, empty courtroom to "give us more comfortable seats" on which to wait. Another half-hour wait and a Clerk came in. He informed us that a case was about to go ahead but the accused group of reprobates had decided at the last minute that "they did actually do it after all". So, off home we went.

Apparently that is a tactic commonly deployed by accused reprobates. Wait until the last possible minute then declare that you are actually guilty of the offense. This means that you stay out of jail for as long as possible, but also gain the benefit of having pled-guilty. Waiting until the last minute means waiting until the point where there is forty potential jurors waiting outside the room. Not that these non-working imbeciles would give a damn about that.

Another night, another call. This time I was to attend the original court a bit earlier the next morning. So in I went, waited the usual period of time, then was told that the case had been canned again. Quelle surprise! When I called up later that evening I was told that I was "no longer required for Jury Service".

A Waste of Time

I started off the week with such naïve hopes of being selected for an interesting case. To experience the inner workings of the British justice system and to broaden my horizons. My sense of cynicism about the public sector had been temporarily laid to one side.

Instead, I took a week away from my project in work at a crucial time. I was given a stark reminder of the terrible waste and the horrible inefficiencies that exist in the public sector. It was illustrated to me again how the selfishness of the human mindset is always going to blight public sector organizations. I’m happy to support the rule of law in Scotland. However, such a waste of my time and getting involved in such an inefficient use of public funds really sticks in my throat.

On the plus-side, I thought, at least I've bought myself another five years before I can be called-up again? Not true. That only applies if you have actually served on a jury. Given that I was cited for the High Court last year (managed to get out of that one), I look forward to next year's waste of time.