Jury duty farce

I knew as soon as I looked at the envelope from the Ministry of Justice addressed to my husband, that he had been called up for jury duty. Sure enough, when he opened it the words "JURY SUMMONS" were printed in menacing bold print at the top of the letter. Well, maybe he will be able to get out of it because of work, we thought.

Reading the contents further, we discovered that when on jury duty (which usually takes a week or longer) you are paid a measly $60 a day. That's NZ$ folks. How on earth are you supposed to survive on that when you have hundreds of dollars of financial commitments each week? Taking annual leave is out of the question. We're praying that they will accept a letter from his boss and excuse him from the duty.

This is just another example of government stupidity. If they paid your wages as normal, then you would just have the inconvenience of getting behind at work or finding a temporary replacement for your role. You could put up with that and willingly serve. But to put you at such a disadvantage is just a disgrace. I wonder how they get anyone in full time employment to serve at all. I suppose they just use the iron fist and make them. Typical.