Despite a significant drop in contributions in the midst of the pandemic, FIJA has remained unflinchingly committed not to accept any government funding—no government loans, no government grants, not one dime taken from taxpayers and redistributed under the CARES Act or other government programs. We feel this is important to remain steadfastly independent in our support of autonomous juries.
The consequence of that, however, has been that all of FIJA’s work nationwide since the start of the pandemic has been conducted on a shoestring budget of significantly less than $50,000 annually. This is impacting FIJA’s capacity to provide the critical resources, training, programs, etc. necessary to fight back against the government’s underhanded cancellation of jury rights during the pandemic—and beyond it into the so-called "new normal".
