The Ineligible Juror who Serves as a Juror


Eligibility

Subject to the exceptions set out in sections 3 and 4 of the Juries Act (Ontario), every person who

·         resides in Ontario,

·         is a Canadian citizen, and

·         in the year preceding the year for which the jury is selected had attained the age of eighteen years

 is eligible and liable to serve as a juror on juries in the Superior Court of Justice in the county in which he or she resides.

Ineligibility to Serve as a Juror

Anyone who has been required to attend court for jury service in the preceding three years is ineligible to serve as a juror, as is a person who has been convicted of an indictable offence for which he/she has not been pardoned.

A number of occupations also render a person ineligible for jury service, including qualified medical practitioners who are actively engaged in practice, those engaged in the enforcement of law (including police and firefighters), ( see R. v. Zvolensky, 2017 ONCA 273 at para 192, for instance), lawyers and students-of-law.

See sections 3 and 4 of the Juries Act (Ontario) for other criteria which will render a person ineligible.

What happens when someone who is ineligible serves as a juror?

The ineligibility of a juror is not a basis on which to interfere with the verdict, however (see ss. 670 and 671 of the Criminal Code).

Criminal Code

670. Judgment shall not be stayed or reversed after verdict on an indictment

(a) by reason of any irregularity in the summoning or empanelling of the jury; or

(b) for the reason that a person who served on the jury was not returned as a juror by a sheriff or other officer.

671. No omission to observe the directions contained in any Act with respect to the qualification, selection, balloting or distribution of jurors, the preparation of the jurors’ book, the selecting of jury lists or the drafting of panels from the jury lists is a ground for impeaching or quashing a verdict rendered in criminal proceedings.

These curative sections were applied in R. v. Rushton (1974), 20 C.C.C. (2d) 297 (Ont. C.A.), where it was discovered after the verdict that a juror was the wife of a police officer and exempted from service under the version of the Juries Act then in force. They were also applied in R. v. Stewart, [1932] S.C.R. 612, where a member of the jury was ineligible because he had been convicted of an indictable offence. See also, R. v. Zvolensky, 2017 ONCA.






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