Do I Have to Serve?

If you are chosen and you qualify for jury service then you are legally obliged to attend.

If the date you have been summoned for is not convenient, you can apply to postpone your service. This is called deferring. There are also some circumstances when you may apply to be excused from jury service.

What is the difference between being deferred and being excused?

You may ask the Juries Officer to:

Defer your service – this is when for good reason your service is postponed. If you are deferred you will be given a new date to attend that is convenient to you. Jury service may only be deferred once.

Excuse you from jury service on this occasion – you will only be excused if the Juries Officer is satisfied that it isn’t reasonable to expect you to do jury service during the next year. If you are excused, your name may still be called at random again from the electoral register, and you will have to go through the same process of accepting, deferring or asking to be excused.