May 2025

Tirohanga Whānui | Overview 

The New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services (NZCCSS) welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback on the Juries (Age of Excusal) Amendment Bill. We support the kaupapa to increase the age of automatic excusal and encourage an assessment of the age of excusal more broadly.  

There are notable and persistent issues of age-based exclusion for older people across society. This appears to be one such case.  

While the form for excusal only presents age as an option for being excused from duty, not an automatic removal of eligibility, it presents the suggestion that there is a good reason why someone over the age in question should be excused.  

We suggest assessing if there is a need for this age of excusal at all, or whether the normal process of application for excusal on existing grounds is sufficient. If an older person wishes to be excused on one of the other grounds, specifically the Health and Disability option or the ‘Other personal circumstances’ option, then this would be more than sufficient to support the needs of older people who do need to be excused for these reasons, not automatically assuming that all older people should want to be excused from service.  

Ingoa whakapā | Contact Name 

Alicia Sudden [email protected] 
Rachel Mackay