Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 76
June 2005
Zarb Adami v. Malta (dec.) - 17209/02
Decision 24.5.2005 [Section IV]
Article 14
Discrimination
Sex
Burden of jury service allegedly placed predominantly on males, as well as on persons who had previously served as jurors: admissible
Article 4
Article 4-3-d
Normal civic obligations
Burden of jury service allegedly placed predominantly on males, as well as on persons who had previously served as jurors: admissible
The applicant was placed on a list of jurors in 1971. Since then, he has undertaken jury service on three occasions, but failed to appear when called to act in a new set of proceedings in 1997. The applicant received a fine of approximately 240 euros, but as he did not pay it he was summoned to the courts, where he pleaded that the fine imposed on him was discriminatory because it subjected him to burdens and duties to which other persons in the same position were not subjected, in particular because once a person had been placed on a list he would remain on it until disqualified, whilst other persons who were eligible were being exempted from such a civic obligation. Moreover, the applicant maintained that the law and practice de facto exempted females from performing the social duty of jury service. He submitted statistics to the domestic courts showing that during the preceding five years in practice only 3.05% of women as opposed to 96.95% of men served as jurors. In a judgment in 2001, the Constitutional Court rejected the applicant’s complaints as neither the law nor the rules on the compilation of the list of jurors were in any way discriminatory on the basis of sex. The court, however, acknowledged that the number of women being exempted from jury service was high but that there were social, family and cultural reasons for such exemptions. The Constitutional Court also accepted the applicant’s complaint that the way the lists were compiled seemed to punish those persons who were on the list (and suggested the system be amended), but did not consider that he had been subjected to burdensome treatment for the simple reason that he had to serve as a juror three times over a span of seventeen years. In any event, the applicant should have made use of ordinary remedies to seek exemption from jury service, and not just ignore the summons to act as juror. Between 2000 and 2005 the applicant requested to be exempted from jury service on three occasions. His claims were refused, except for his request in 2005, when he was removed from the list of jurors on grounds that he was at the time a full-time university lecturer (which was a legal cause of exemption).
Admissible under Article 14 in conjunction with Article 4 § 3(d). The Government’s objection (non-exhaustion): The remedies advanced by the Government were not sufficiently certain in practice, as they either gave the national courts an unfettered discretion or would have led to the remittance of the fine, but not to exemption from jury service. Moreover, the applicant had raised a plea of unconstitutionality, which was one of the several remedies available. The application could therefore not be rejected on these grounds.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy