Jury service leave and pay entitlements

Under the National Employment Standards (NES) in the Fair Work Act 2009, employees:

• are entitled to be absent from work when attending for jury service, and
• have a limited entitlement to be paid for jury service.

Jury service leave

Jury service leave is a form of community service leave under the NES.

All employees (i.e. full-time, part-time and casual employees) are entitled to jury service leave.

The entitlement to leave applies not only to time spent performing jury service, but also to reasonable travel time for jury service and reasonable rest time immediately after jury service.

There is no minimum employment period to be entitled to the leave, and no limit on the amount of available leave.

Jury service pay

There is a limited entitlement to be paid for jury service under the NES.

Payment for time spent on jury service under the NES is:

• available to full-time and part-time employees only (i.e. not to casual employees),
• payable only for the first 10 days of jury service, and
• paid at the “base rate of pay” (i.e. the rate for ordinary hours, excluding payments such as overtime, penalty rates, allowances, loadings and bonuses), less any jury service pay provided by the relevant state or territory government.

Some state and territory laws have more generous jury service pay requirements that employers must comply with. See the table below for more details.

Notice and evidence requirements

To be entitled to leave and payment for jury service under the NES, an employee must:

• notify their employer of the absence as soon as practicable and advise the expected period of the absence,
• provide evidence that would satisfy a reasonable person that the reason for the absence is to perform jury service (e.g. a jury service summons issued by the court),
• for full-time and part-time employees only - if required by their employer, provide evidence:
  • that the employee has taken all necessary steps to obtain any amount of government-provided jury service pay the employee is entitled to for the first 10 days, and
  • of the amount of jury service pay paid to the employee by the state/territory government for the first 10 days.

Jury service pay under state and territory laws

State and territory laws relating to jury service pay apply in addition to the NES. If a state or territory law provides a more beneficial pay entitlement than the NES, the employer must provide the state/territory entitlement instead of the NES entitlement.

The following table summarises state and territory jury service pay entitlements:

Awards, enterprise agreements and employment contracts

Awards, enterprise agreements and employment contracts may provide more beneficial jury service leave and/or pay entitlements than the NES or state/territory legislation.

In this situation, the employer must pay the more beneficial award, enterprise agreement or employment contract entitlement instead of the NES or state/territory entitlement.

Key take aways

• Employers should ensure they are aware of all jury service entitlements that apply in their workplaces, particularly where employees are:
  • based in more than one state or territory, and/or
  • covered by different awards, enterprise agreements or employment contracts.
• Employers should inform employees in advance of their obligations to provide notice and evidence to support jury service leave and pay. One way of doing this is to include information about jury service leave and pay in the employer’s leave policy.
• The Fair Work Ombudsman’s website contains free information and resources on jury service entitlements.