Juries Act 1981

Miscellaneous provisions

36A: Purpose and application of 2012 amendments on jury service

You could also call this:

"Changes to Jury Service Rules from 2012"

The purpose of Part 1 of the Juries Amendment Act 2012 is to change the Juries Act 1981. You will be disqualified from jury service if you have been sentenced to home detention for 3 months or more in the last 5 years. The law also says what happens if you are sentenced to home detention for less than 3 months and are called for jury service. You might be allowed to delay your jury service until your home detention sentence is finished. The person in charge of the jury, called the Registrar, can decide to excuse you from jury service. This means you will not have to serve on a jury, and you might be excused permanently. The changes to the law only apply to jury service that happens after the changes came into effect. This is true even if you were called for jury service or sentenced to home detention before the changes came into effect, and you can read more about the Juries Amendment Act 2012 on the https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM3608412 legislation website. The changes affect how you serve on a jury, and when you can be excused from jury service.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM5165322.

This page was last updated on 25 December 2025 — View changes

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Crime and justice > Courts and legal help

36: Transitional, or

"Special rules for jury lists made after 1 January 1982"

36B: Purpose and application of 2012 amendments on protection of particulars of jury list information, or

"Keeping Jurors' Information Safe and Private"

36APurpose and application of 2012 amendments on jury service

The purpose of Part 1 of the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Act 2012 is to amend this Act so that it—
disqualifies from jury service a person who, at any time within the preceding 5 years, has been sentenced to home detention for a period that is, or is more than, 3 months; and
requires a person on whom a court has imposed a sentence of home detention for a period of less than 3 months and who is summoned to serve as a juror on an occasion in a week during which he or she will be subject to the sentence to be permitted to defer that person's attendance to serve as a juror to a date after the person has ceased to be subject to the sentence, or to be excused from serving as a juror on that occasion; and
ensures that the Registrar has a discretion or duty to excuse a person summoned to attend as a juror on any occasion from attending not only on that occasion, but also in any court on any occasion, and also that a person who the Registrar has excused from jury service permanently is no longer, unless that permanent excusal is cancelled, qualified and liable to serve as a juror.

The amendments made to this Act by a provision of that Part apply only to a person's attendance to serve as a juror on an occasion after that provision's commencement, but apply to any such attendance even if that person was summoned to attend, sentenced to home detention, or both, before that commencement.

Notes

Section 36A: inserted, on 29 April 2013, by section 13 of the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Act 2012 (2012 No 75).