Canadian Government Executive - Volume 24 - Issue 01

40 / Canadian Government Executive // January/February 2018 Jury Duty and Deliverology W hile former US President Barack Obama and I share very little, we do have one experience in common – namely jury duty. In recent months, Obama was sum- moned in Chicago, and I in Halifax. He was dismissed whereas I was deferred (due to travel), but at least we showed. Not everyone does. In Nova Scotia in 2013, the Chief Justice of the Provincial Supreme Court lamented rising truancy levels for potential jurors, pledging to “get these people off Facebook and into the court room.” A 2015 study found that one-fifth of potential jurors in California’s most populous counties failed to report. Much like voting is the cornerstone of democracy, jury selection is a pillar of a fair and functional justice system – and declining participation levels threaten the quality and representativeness of jury pools, and thus the legitimacy of the system as a whole. Of course, an important difference is that voting is optional, unlike a court summons. In the face of steadily declining voter turnout levels, the Liberals pledged to examine various facets of democratic retooling includ- ing three notable initiatives: electoral reform, electronic voting, and mandatory voting. Only the first was examined with any level of se- riousness before being abandoned. Along with partisan paralysis, the By Jeffrey Roy Governing Digitally