High-ranking clerics face jury duty

TOP-RANKING clerics including cardinals and archbishops will have to explain themselves if they want to be excused from jury service, under plans to be published today.

Law reformers have proposed scrapping a blanket excusal for clergy and many professions from acting as jurors because they believe there aren’t enough middle-class people deciding the outcomes of trials.

Present regulations allow priests, nuns, doctors,nurses, veterinary surgeons and chemists as well as TDs, senators and civil servants automatically to exempt themselves. Lighthouse keepers, ships captains, airline pilots, university lecturers and full-time students are also covered by the pardon.