Ex-crims should serve on juries: report

Some people with criminal records should be able to serve on Queensland juries to widen the pool of prospective jurors, a report recommends.

In its annual report, released on Tuesday, the Queensland Law Reform Commission also recommends that lawyers, people aged over 70, and disabled people be allowed to serve on juries.

The commission said that Queensland's laws excluding any person convicted of an indictable offence from serving on a jury were the strictest in Australia.

It recommended laws be changed to allow certain people with criminal records to serve.

These included people convicted before a magistrate rather than a judge or jury; or those with "spent convictions", which includes those convicted of offences that did not attract a prison sentence over 30 months and whose convictions occurred at least 10 years ago.

Mayors and local-government councillors, most lawyers, people aged over 70, and disabled people should also become eligible to serve on juries, according to the review.

And those whose occupations automatically exclude them from jury duty for life, such as judges and police officers, should become eligible three years after leaving the profession, the report said.

"Many of the existing bases for excluding a person from jury service relate to a person's occupation, profession or office," it said.

"This has the potential to undermine the representativeness of the jury and the fair sharing of jury service among members of the community."

The commission also recommended that the daily wage for jurors should be based on the national minimum wage and that extra pay for long trials should kick in after 10 weekdays rather than 20.

The current daily wage for jurors is $110.

The Law Commission also reviewed the state's guardianship laws and recommended that the current test to determine whether a disabled or ill person has "capacity" be largely retained.

However, it recommended tightening the eligibility requirements for powers of attorney.

Specifically, it said that people who had been a paid carer for the ill person in the past three years, or who had been convicted of violent or dishonest offences in the past 10 years, be ineligible to gain power of attorney.