[Omah]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

Silly woman.

I do agree that Jury Duty shouldn't be compulsory though, why put someone's future in the hands of a person so irresponsible?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15763388

The concept of civic duty has been used by those in favour of creating a written constitution for the UK - the argument being that if you know what's expected of you by society, you're more likely to do it.

Nick Cowan, from the think tank Civitas, says for him, jury duty is key - not least because it requires a much greater time commitment from the citizen than simply ticking a box on a polling form.

"It's terribly important because it's one of the backstops against a justice system that might otherwise go out of control.

"It's not that jurors are delivering any expertise. In fact, it's because they're disinterested - they have no personal affiliation with the judge, the lawyers, the defendant or the police - that they're so important.

"Jurors are outside observers present to see justice being done and to call a halt to it if it doesn't work. If everyone started welching out of jury duty, you'd end up with juries that were dangerously unrepresentative.

Alison Park, who is research director at the National Centre for Social Research, says there's been a long term decline in the proportion of people who think it's their civic duty to take part in elections.

"If you divide the population into age groups, sense of civic duty is much stronger in older generations.

"Historically, people's sense has tended to get stronger as they've got older, but I just can't see that happening with today's younger generations.

"There's something about the lessons that young people are being taught, not just in school but more generally, about politics and the worth of politics. They are entering the electorate not being that interested or engaged, and without a sense of responsibility to vote."

Alison agrees that the experience of wartime - either personal, or close, from a parent - may be one factor behind it. The idea that those who have seen their political freedoms threatened view them as more valuable than those who haven't.

"You could also argue that politics now is more complicated. The world is so intertwined now, what a government can actually do is quite constrained, so you could argue that perhaps young people are more aware of the weaknesses of government.

"Whatever the reason, the difference between generations is indisputable and unless something very unexpected happens, young people are never going to discover the sense of civic duty that their grandparents have."

Sound words from Nick and Alison .....