JHTA urges hotel owners, managers to allow employees to exercise civic duties

WESTERN BUREAU:

THE JAMAICA Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) says it was not aware that employees in the hospitality sector were not responding favourably to civic responsibilities such as jury duty.

Speaking with The Gleaner, Robin Russell, president of the JHTA, said jury duty was a civic responsibility that everyone should participate in, because there is no justice without jurors where their services are required.

Russell said that, from his perspective, the matter was not brought to his attention as a major concern, and that he was not aware that hospitality workers were not responding favourably when summoned for jury duties.

“Everybody has a role to play in the fight against crime and allowing persons to get justice,” Russell said, noting that jurors play a very important role in the country’s justice system.

Russell, who is also the managing director of Deja All Inclusive Resort, is encouraging other hoteliers to provide their employees with sufficient time to serve the justice system.

“I therefore encourage all the members of the organisation to support justice … . I am appealing to the hotel managers, in particular, to assess the needs, based on demands, and make adjustments in their operations, and give people time off for jury duties,” said Russell, who was responding to a statement from Chief Justice Bryan Sykes, who said hotel workers and those employed in the financial sector are shunning jury duty.

At the same time, the hotelier is urging employees to be responsible and attend court when they are provided the time off for jury duty.

“I am also appealing to the people that, when they get the time off for jury, they need to do it,” Russell added.

Addressing business leaders during an awards banquet of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry last weekend, Sykes, who heads the country’s judiciary, said, when the police issue jury summonses to these categories of workers, they often find an excuse not to serve.

According to the chief jurist, people who work within the hospitality and the financial sectors in western Jamaica have long been shunning the justice system, where they constantly hide behind pre-planned activities, which are usually at the same time of the sittings of circuit courts.

“When it comes to jury service, you can’t find people from the hotel industry, and there are so many hotels from Trelawny, [St James and Hanover]. They can’t find people in the financial sector, they can’t find managers, whether junior or senior, to serve as jurors,” Sykes revealed.

Continuing, the country’s chief justice noted that, “the only persons we find, and I am not saying anything is wrong with them but they turned up, [are] fishermen, domestic helpers, practical nurses, and so on.”

This, he said, has resulted in an unbalanced allocation of Jamaicans from all critical sectors.

“And so the burden of jury service falls disproportionately on these persons,” he noted.

He said, when the police happened to find someone from middle management from the hotel, financial sector and other sectors to serve, the court is presented with requests to be released as a result of a myriad of issues.

“What happens, a letter comes in to say Mr John Brown is desirous of serving and he takes his civic responsibility very seriously. However, our company is engaged in (whatever the critical exercise is) and the time is always the duration of the circuit,” the chief justice said, arguing that they are not even saying that they will serve the first week or the last week, because the company’s engagement is always the duration of the Circuit Court.