The Zachary Rolfe Case in 2022 hammered home the need for more Aboriginal people on juries. One of the biggest hurdles to better Aboriginal representation on juries is the fact that there are only two jury districts in the Northern Territory: Darwin and Alice Springs, while
more than three-quarters of Aboriginal people live in more remote areas. If we want to allow further representation from Indigenous communities – and this is something we should want – then jury districts should be widened. This is not a simple task.
The Electoral Roll can and should be used to obtain a list of suitable jurors. Large sections of the community are currently excluded: not only Aboriginal people, but also migrants. In 2021, more than 24,000 people were missing from the electoral roll. The jury list could also be expanded by adding to the Electoral Roll names taken from Centrelink and MVR databases. An extra 17,000 people could be identified this way.
For juries to function as
they should, and for Aboriginal people to gain confidence in the judicial system, juries in the Northern Territory must be representative of the population of the Northern Territory.
The Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution stipulated that court trials must be held with the help of an impartial jury. This has resulted in the doctrine that juries must be drawn from a representative cross-section of the community. The Northern Territory should develop a
similar doctrine, despite the hurdles presented. Since jury duty is part of being a citizen, there should be ongoing efforts to encourage Aboriginal people to get onto the Electoral Roll.
Barriers to participation on juries by Aboriginal people should be removed. One of these barriers is that many Aboriginal people are deemed not proficient enough in English to
perform jury service. Another barrier is the ineffective service of juror summonses. Despite their complex nature and the very real problem of the tyranny of distance in the Northern Territory, these obstacles must be addressed sooner rather than later.
Image: The White Elephant in the Room: Anti-Asian Racism in Canada, by Dr. Henry Yu, UBC
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