The Juries (Northern Ireland) Order 1996

Empanelling of jurors

Selection of names

5.—(1) Where a court is to be held before which jurors may be required, the Juries Officer shall select a sufficient number of names from the Jurors List and prepare a panel of those names.

(2) A person’s name shall not be included in the panel unless his name appears in the Jurors List for the current year, but if there is no Jurors List in existence for the current year, jurors may be selected from the Jurors List for the next preceding year.

(3) Subject to paragraph (4), there shall be no restriction on the places in Northern Ireland at which a juror may be required to attend for jury service.

(4) In preparing a panel of jurors to be summoned to attend for jury service at a particular court or place—

(a) the Juries Officer shall, in the first instance, take the names of the jurors in numerical order from the Divisional Jurors List for the division in which that court or place is situated;

(b) if, taking names in accordance with sub-paragraph (a), the Juries Officer exhausts the Divisional Jurors List for the division in which that court or place is situated, he shall select such other jurors as may be required in numerical order from any one or more of the other Divisional Jurors Lists, but in so doing he shall have regard to the convenience of the persons to be summoned and to their respective places of residence, and in particular to the desirability of selecting, so far as is reasonably practicable, jurors who reside within convenient daily travelling distance of that place.

(5) If the place of trial of a person on indictment is not situated within a relevant division the Crown Court may direct the Juries Officer to prepare a panel of jurors under paragraph (4) for the purposes of that trial as if references to the Divisional Jurors List for the division in which that court or place is situated were references to the Divisional Jurors List for a relevant division.

(6) In paragraph (5) “relevant division” means—

(a) a division for which a relevant magistrates' court acts;

(b) in a case where the indictment falls within paragraph (c), (d), (c) or (f) of section 2(2) of the [1969 c. 15 (N.I.)] Grand Jury (Abolition) Act (Northern Ireland) 1969, a division in which an offence charged in the indictment was committed.

(7) In paragraph (6)(a) “relevant magistrates' court” means a magistrates' court—

(a) which committed that person for trial; or

(b) which received a notice of transfer within the meaning of Article 3(1)(c) of the [1988 NI 16] Criminal Justice (Serious Fraud) (Northern Ireland) Order 1988 (transfer of serious fraud cases to Crown Court) or Article 4(1) of the [1995 NI 3] Children’s Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 (certain cases involving children).

Form of panel

6.—(1) The panel shall contain the full names of the persons selected with their addresses, and (subject to Article 4(10)(b)) occupations, arranged in the order in which the names are selected from the Jurors List.

(2) When the Juries Officer selects names in accordance with Article 5 he shall inscribe the date of selection and the court for which the names are selected opposite each of those names in the proper column of the Jurors List and shall initial in that list the names selected by him.

Inspection of panel

7.  Panels prepared under Article 5 shall be kept for inspection at such places as the Lord Chancellor may direct and, on payment of the fee fixed by the Lord Chancellor, a copy of the panel shall be supplied to any party to proceedings in which jurors whose names are included in the panel are or may be called on to try an issue.