South Australia’s juries must reflect the communities they judge

A recent report has made a blunt, uncomfortable finding: Indigenous people in South Australia, despite being over‑represented in the criminal justice system, are very rarely called to sit on juries. That mismatch is not a technicality or a matter of symbolism. It is a live threat to the fairness and perceived legitimacy of the courts that decide the most serious matters in our community. Juries are meant to be a cross‑section of the community, a lay check on state power so that verdicts are not the preserve of judges and prosecutors alone. When a particular group appears routinely absent from juries while appearing recurrently before the courts as defendants, the system looks, and risks being, one‑sided. For Indigenous South Australians the problem is doubly corrosive: communities already grappling with the social and economic drivers of over‑representation are being denied the civic opportunity to participate in a cornerstone of democratic justice. The report’s finding should be a prompt to honest, practical reform. The causes of under‑representation are not spelled out in the brief facts we have here, but the answer will not be found in pious statements alone. Barriers can be procedural — how jurors are summoned, how eligibility is assessed — as well as material: inability to take time off work, lack of transport, caregiving duties, or the very real fear that participation could expose people to uncomfortable contact with a system they distrust. Cultural considerations, too, matter; the formal setting of a courthouse and the adversarial routine of a trial can feel alien to people whose experience of the state has often been punitive rather than civic. Fixing the imbalance requires targeted, properly resourced steps. Jury summons procedures should be reviewed with Indigenous communities and representative organisations; that means listening to those communities on what would make civic service possible and acceptable. Financial support for jurors — including genuine compensation for lost income, travel and childcare — should be standard practice, not a grudging concession. Courts can better accommodate cultural needs by offering clearer information about the process in accessible forms, and by ensuring court staff and officials are trained to engage respectfully. There are risks to delay. Where juries do not reflect the community, verdicts reach beyond the parties in the dock — they shape public confidence. Courts that are perceived as out of touch reinforce the very disengagement and grievance that feed cycles of offending. Conversely, when civic institutions work to include historically excluded groups, they strengthen social cohesion and improve outcomes for everyone. This is not simply a technical reform to be left to bureaucrats. It is a matter of justice and community health. South Australia’s government, judicial authorities and legal profession should accept the report’s finding as a call to action: consult Indigenous communities, remove practical barriers, and make jury service a realistic option for people who have been excluded for too long. The gains will be more than moral; they will be practical. Better‑balanced juries will produce decisions that are seen as fair, and a justice system more likely to command the trust it needs to work effectively.