From 1 June 1984 to 31 May 1985, 142,471 people were summoned for jury service. As records are not kept of the numbers of panels cancelled, of people excused or of the proportion of people attending court who actually serve on juries, assumptions have been made based on the limited information which is available on juries in the outer metropolitan courts. These assumptions have been checked against even more limited information available on juries in Sydney and have been found to correlate well.

On the assumption that about 40% of persons summoned are advised in advance not to attend (their panels are cancelled) (1): 85,483 are required to attend.

On the assumption that 25% of people summoned are excused by the Sheriff or simply fail to attend (2): 64,112 actually attend.

On the assumption that 20% of people who attend court are not used to form jury panels (3): 51,290 attend and are formed into jury panels. Those 12,822 people who attend but are not required are paid, in most cases, only $23.00 each: cost = $294,906.00. As the Commission does not propose to increase the half day fee this cost will remain constant.

On the assumption that only 30% of people forming jury panels actually serve on juries (4): 15,388 people actually serve on juries. The remaining 35,902 people either submit successful personal applications to the judge to be excused, are balloted and challenged or are not balloted for a jury. They are, In most cases, paid for only a half days attendance. Again this cost will remain a constant. The cost of paying those 35,903 people $23.00 each would be $825,769.00.

Table A. 1 shows the proportions of total serving jurors who serve in trials of various lengths (5).

Trial Length (Days)	% of Jurors	Total Jurors	Juror Days
1	20.0	3077	3077
2	37.0	5693	11386
3	23.0	3539	10617
4	10.0	1539	6156
5	2.0	308	1540
6	2.0	308	1848
7	2.0	308	2156
8	1.0	154	1232
9	0.5	77	693
10	1.0	154	1540
11	0.5	77	847
12	0.5		924
14	0.5	77	1078
Totals	100%	15,388	43,094

Total juror days on these figures would be 43,094 days-excluding days spent on trials longer than 14 days. If all Jurors were to be paid $87. 10 per day, as proposed in our Discussion Paper (para 5.22), the cost of paying serving Jurors would be $3,753,487.00.

However, our recommendation is that the jury fee should be $46.00 per day for the first five days of service and $87.10 for each day of service thereafter. The comparative costs on the 1984-1985 total of Jurors summoned and the assumptions stated are set out in Table A.2.

Table A.2

Trial Length (Days)	Juror Days	Total Cost Current Fees $	Total costs Proposed $
1	3077	141,542	141,542
2	11386	523,756	523,756
3	10617	488,382	488,382
4	6456	284,715	283,176
5	1540	71,456	70,840
6	1848	86,548	97,667
7	2156	101,640	124,494
8	1232	58,366	75,660
9	693	32,956	44,537
10	1540	73,458	102,487
11	847	40,887	57,950
12	924	45,045	64,657
13	-	-	-
14	1078	53,361	78,070
Total	43,094	2,002,112	2,153,218

The cost of the Commission’s recommended fee increase would add just under 8% on top of the current cost.

1. Figures for Outer Metropolitan Courts supplied by the Sheriff's Office and published in Review of the Allocation, Utilisation and Funding of Juries (NSW Attorney General's Department August 1985) Annexure 2.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. NSW Law Reform Commission Survey of Court Procedures 30 September 1985 to 13 December 1985.