Eligibility

All potential jurors are selected at random from the Electoral Register. 

You are eligible for jury service if you:

  • are registered as a person entitled to vote in an election and are not less than 18 years of age nor more than 75 years of age

  • have been ordinarily resident in the British Islands for a period of at least five years since attaining the age of thirteen. 

You are ineligible for jury service if you fall into any of the categories of ineligible or disqualified persons listed below.

If you consider you are ineligible for jury service you are still required to write to the Court advising of the date for which you have been summoned and setting out how you satisfy the criteria set out for ineligibility.

If you consider you should not act as a juror due to your connection to someone who is ineligible or who may be involved in the case e.g. a spouse or partner you will need to attend on the day for which you were summoned and raise your concerns at court.

If you consider you should not act as a juror due to insufficient understanding of English you will need to attend on the day for which you were summoned and raise your concerns at court.

  • Peers and Peeresses entitled to receive writs of summons to attend the House of Lords
  • Members of Tynwald
  • Members of Statutory Boards and any Committees thereof
  • A Clerk to Tynwald or any Branch thereof.
  • The Tynwald Auditor General
  • The Tynwald Commissioner for Administration
  • Deemster
  • Judicial Officer within the meaning of section 3C of the High Court Act 1991
  • High Bailiff
  • Justice of the Peace
  • Attorney General and professional members of his Department
  • Any person whose duties are or include acting as clerk to any court of summary jurisdiction
  • Chief Registrar
  • A person who has at any time been a person falling within any description specified above in this Group
  • A person for the time being appointed as an arbitrator pursuant to section 4(6) of the Administration of Justice Act 1983.
  • Advocates, barristers or solicitors whether or not in actual practice as such
  • Articled clerks
  • Coroners
  • Professionally qualified legal executives in the employment of advocates
  • Lockmen
  • Officers and staff of any court, if their work is mainly concerned with the day to day administration of the court
  • A shorthand writer in any court
  • Probation officers and persons appointed to assist
  • Members of the Staff of any remand centre, detention centre, probation home, probation hostel or bail hostel
  • Members of the Parole Committee
  • Members of the body established under section 18(1) of the Police Act 1993
  • A constable
  • The governor and other officers of the Isle of Man Prison
  • Persons employed for police purposes by the Department of Home Affairs
  • Employees of the Public Services Commission assigned to the Department of Home Affairs
  • The Chief Secretary, and those members of the staff of the Cabinet office whose work is concerned with the administration of justice and who have been designated as such, in writing, by the Chief Secretary
  • A person who at any time within the last ten years has been a person falling within any description specified above in this Group.
  • A person in holy orders; a regular minister of any religious denomination
  • A vowed member of any religious order living in a monastery, convent or other religious community.
  • Persons of the following professions if actually practising and registered (including provisionally or temporarily registered) enrolled, certified or licensed under enactments (including Acts of Parliament) relating to that profession:
    • Medical practitioners
    • Dentists
    • Nurses
    • Midwives
    • Veterinary surgeons
    • Pharmaceutical chemists.
  • The Chief Financial Officer of the Treasury
  • The chief executive officer of the Department of Health and Social Care
  • The chief executive officer of the Isle of Man Post Office
  • The Director of Education
  • The Town Clerk of Douglas
  • Full time members of Her Majesty's naval, military or air forces
  • Members of the fire brigade maintained under the Fire Services Act 1984
  • Persons employed for fire-fighting purposes at an aerodrome by the Department of Infrastructure
  • Members of Her Majesty's Coastguard Service
  • Lifeboat mechanics and crews
  • Lighthouse keepers
  • Editors, reporters and photographers of newspapers circulating in the Isle of Man and radio and television news reporters
  • Qualified masters, certificated engineers and licensed officers of vessels and aircraft actually employed
  • Harbour Masters
  • Marine Surveyors and Assistant Marine Surveyors
  • Industrial relations officers
  • The Chief Executive of Manx Care.
  • A person who suffers or has suffered from mental disorder and on account of that condition:
    • is liable to be detained (otherwise than by virtue of an application for admission for assessment)
    • is resident in a hospital or mental nursing home
    • is subject to guardianship
    • is subject to after-care under supervision
    • regularly attends treatment by a registered medical practitioner.
      (Expressions in the above head are to be construed in accordance with the Mental Health Act 1998.)
  • A person with respect to whom any proceedings under Part 7 of the Mental Health Act 1998 have been commenced and have not been terminated.
  • A person who is registered as a blind person 
  • A person who is certified by a registered medical practitioner to be so deaf as to be unable to perform the functions of a juror
  • A person who is in receipt of an attendance allowance under section 35 of the Social Security Act 1975 (an Act of Parliament), as it has effect in the Island
  • A person who is certified by a registered medical practitioner to be suffering from a condition which:

(a) is likely to persist for more than 12 months, and 

(b) is such as to render him incapable of performing the functions of a juror.

Page last updated on 10 January 2023