[manarth]

  > would have to voluntarily accept to serve on the jury, it is by invitation rather than compulsion

Jury service is compulsory in the UK.

"most people would decline a jury summons if it was voluntary, mainly for the inconvenience. Avoiding it, however, is ill advised: you cannot simply refuse and it is a criminal offence to not answer a jury summons without reasonable cause."

- https://www.law.ac.uk/resources/blog/everything-you-need-to-...

[zinekeller]

> the talesmen would have to voluntarily accept to serve on the jury, it is by invitation rather than compulsion

Of course you've remove an important qualification. Legally-speaking, you couldn't decline, but in practice since most judges recognise that a talesman is more inconvenienced than a regularly-summoned juror, it's effectively voluntary (and indeed you can decline, see this case in 2016: http://archive.today/2021.07.03-080147/https://www.thetimes....). If you were summoned normally, you haven't much of a choice.