Jury duty! What comes to mind when you read that? Is it something to desperately try to get out of or would you be curious to see what it entails? I was called a few years ago but couldn’t go as it was during my exams, I was gutted if I’m honest, I really wanted to do it. I think it’d be really interesting.

Both of my sisters have been called over the last 12 months, one got a murder case, the other sat around being rejected by barrister after barrister (she’s a bit of a hippy you see). Most people I’ve talked to say they wouldn’t want to do it but you need a good excuse these days, I know of someone who moved house so didn’t get the letter asking her to attend, she ended up in court herself for not appearing – serious stuff.

Having said all this I was surprised to read that a woman has been rejected for jury duty in Galway, on account, it would seem, that she is deaf? This seems a little crazy to me, getting an interpreter can’t be that much bother and that’s all she needs. I’m sure she’s perfectly capable of doing the job as well as anyone else, perhaps better than some.

I was glad to read this morning that she has brought a landmark legal action against the Courts Service in order to have this matter dealt with head on – fair play to her. The state is denying that it has done anything wrong, saying that this lady is not eligible due to a “permanent infirmity of deafness”!!!

What century are we living in? Are they actually saying that this woman can’t do her civic duty because she’s deaf – that’s just madness. The excuse they have is that having an interpreter in the jury room would break the “absolute confidentiality” of any conversations therein but I did a sign language course a few years ago and seem to remember being thought that all interpreters had to be guided by a code of ethics laid out by the Irish Association of Sign Language Interpreters so surely this argument is defunked?

I really hope that this lady is successful in her bid to be recognised as eligible for jury duty as she is obviously passionate about her human rights which, in my opinion, would probably make her a pretty good juror!!! I hope the days are gone when so called “infirmities”, like deafness, are seen as something that makes a person less able for tasks such as this, as thankfully, we live in an age where this no longer need be so.