Michael Farrell is Senior Solicitor at the Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC). In recent years, FLAC represented a number of deaf people who wished to fulfil their civic duty of jury service but were involuntarily excluded.
Deaf activists and the Australian Centre for Disability Law are currently taking a number of cases challenging the exclusion of deaf persons from jury service in Australia. One case will be heard by the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal at the beginning of June and three complaints have made against Australia under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Ms Gaye Prudence Lyons, an official with Deaf Australia Inc. in Brisbane, Queensland, received a jury summons in January 2012. She emailed the court staff to say that she looked forward to serving on the jury but would need the assistance of sign language interpreters. The Court office emailed her back to say that they would not provide interpreters and she would not be permitted to serve on the jury. Instead she would be excused.
This was similar to the case of Galway woman Joan Clarke, who took a case to the High Court here in 2006, represented by FLAC, because she too had been “excused” from jury service against her wishes when she informed the court staff that she was deaf and would need sign language interpreters. The High Court ruled in 2010 that there should be no blanket ban on deaf people serving on juries but no deaf person has yet served on a jury in this jurisdiction.
Ms Lyons complained to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, claiming that she had been discriminated against contrary to the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Act; that the Court’s deputy registrar had no authority to excuse her when she had not sought to be excused; that the exclusion of deaf persons meant that the jury did not represent a genuine cross-section of society; and that she had been embarrassed and humiliated as a result of the discrimination against her.
The case is set to be heard over three days from 4th to 6th June next.
In the meantime, Michael Lockrey, a prominent deaf activist, has submitted a complaint, or “Communication” to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which monitors the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). He too had been summoned for jury service – in New South Wales – and requested that simultaneous video captioning be provided to assist him. The court staff refused and he was also involuntarily “excused”.
He complained first to the Australian Human Rights Commission but despite attempts by the Commission to mediate, the court officials refused to change their decision. Mr Lockrey then filed his complaint with the CRPD Committee, which is the newest of the UN’s Human Rights monitoring bodies and has only delivered a handful of decisions so far.
Two other deaf persons, who had received jury summonses and had been refused the assistance of a stenographer or a sign language interpreter, have also complained to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and all three complaints are currently being considered for admissibility.
Australia generally accepts the decisions of UN monitoring bodies, so a positive decision by the CRPD could lead to Australia allowing deaf persons to serve on juries for the first time. New Zealand has allowed deaf persons to serve on juries since 2006.
Disability groups in Australia have used the CRPD quite a lot to campaign against discrimination and for better facilities and supports for disabled persons. One hundred and thirty countries and the European Union have now ratified the CRPD Convention, making it an important resource for disability activists. However, Ireland has still not ratified the Convention, or the Optional Protocol which allows individuals to file complaints for decision by the Committee, despite having been one of the countries that strongly advocated the adoption of the Convention by the UN in the first place.