To ask what happens if you can't afford to do jury service?

[AvocadosBeforeMortgages]

Let me start off by saying that I always thought I'd like to do jury service one day.

Now I've discovered that not only do my employers not pay you when you're on jury service, the rates courts pay you for loss of earnings are paltry - the sum I'd get for the first 10 days would be less than half what I'd actually lose, and rates from day 11 are still less than my wages so I couldn't actually afford to do it www.gov.uk/jury-service/what-you-can-claim

Can you refuse to do jury service on the grounds that you can't afford the loss of earnings? I'm single and have rent to pay, for context.

My dh has already done it three times! He hates it. I have always worked in professions that can be automatically excused and have never been called - I am not in England and as a pp pointed out, the system varies across the countries in the UK.

@Catchingacold - it doesn't matter if they earn £1k/day, there has to be a limit somewhere to control costs, my point is that £65 is too low to cover most people's costs. £150/day is £3250/month take-home or equivalent to over £53k; that really should cover most people's costs for childcare, rent/ mortgage, basic bills etc even if they earn £1k/day.
I also think non-earners should be paid something to do jury service, as doing it for free is a bit harsh.

@LaurieFairyCake - of course there is insurance, it's included as an optional extra (for extra fees) in professional indemnity insurance or other legal expenses cover. If your insurer won't cover it and it worries you, just change insurer.

The problem with getting rid of juries, is the loss of the final backstop against tyranny - a jury that will refuse to convict a manifestly unjust law.

(I guess people suggesting such a move don't know the history of the right of a jury to bring it's own verdict, rather than rubber stamping what the judge said ?)

I saw a sign recently: The people that hid Anne Frank were breaking the law; the people that killed her were obeying the law.

As a self employed person it’s not just about replacing your income
I could take a drop in income for a few weeks but if I was to tell a client I was going to be unavailable for a week or longer at a time they needed me ( holidays are by mutual agreement) then they could stop using me altogether. This could damage a business very badly and affect earnings well after the trial had finished

@Hoppinggreen - I'm self employed too, I "lost" income because of the rates and yet I don't regret it. You can specify the least inconvenient dates, you can pre-warn your client to schedule overtime for work before and after the dates instead of during the trial, you can take a laptop and work around the court hours or when you get sent home (court hours are actually very very short for jurors, I think the longest day I was in for was 6 hours actually in court and that's only because the time includes deliberation) etc etc etc. Clients who can't make a small reasonable allowance aren't worth having, find better clients and you'll be happier anyway. It's easy to focus on "what if" but actually it's really a one-off event of a few weeks, our justice system depends on it and you might find it more interesting than you imagine.

Thanks for the advice but I was called up to do it 3 years ago
My circumstances at that time meant it was impossible and I managed to avoid it
In fact I have always wanted to do it and was upset I couldn’t but as I said in my first post on this thread there was no way to do it