Deaf woman alleges exclusion from jury service due to disability

A WOMAN who is deaf has brought a landmark legal action challenging her exclusion from jury service allegedly on grounds of her deafness.

Ms Joan Clarke, a mother of two, claims she is entitled to be facilitated to serve on a jury by means of a sign language interpreter and the failure to allow her do so earlier this year breaches her rights under the Constitution and European Convention on Human Rights Act.

Ms Clarke says she wanted to perform “this important civic duty” on the same basis as everyone else and was frustrated at not being allowed to do so. She also felt she was being discriminated against because she is a deaf person and was being treated as inferior to a hearing person, she said in an affidavit.

She later made contact with the Free Legal Advice Centres in Dublin about the matter and they were representing her in her action.

The case has been brought against the Galway County Registrar, the Courts Service, Ireland and the Attorney General with the Human Rights Commission as a notice party. It was mentioned before Mr Justice John Quirke yesterday who adjourned it to January to allow the defendants prepare a response to the claims.

Ms Clarke, a homemaker of Ashlawn, Athenry Road, Liyghrea, Co Galway, is seeking in her judicial review proceedings an order quashing the decision of the Galway County Registrar and/or Courts Service of May 15th last purportedly excusing her from jury service, apparently on grounds of her deafness.

She is also seeking declarations that any decision on her eligibilty for jury service is for the judicial branch of government to make. She claims she is entitled to serve as a juror under the Juries Act 1976 but, if that Act precludes her from service, then she contends it is both unconstitutional and incompatible with the equality and other provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003.

The challenge is the first of its kind to be brought here. Similar challenges have been allowed in the US but rejected in the UK.

Ms Clarke has been deaf since birth. She is married, her husband is also deaf and they have two hearing children.