Refusal to Serve in a Public Office

Refusal to serve in a public office was an offence under the common law of England and Wales and of Ireland, applying to a person who refused to take up appointment as a high sheriff. Although now considered obsolete, it was tried on indictment and could carry an unlimited fine or term of imprisonment; in 1897 Captain Conway Higginson was convicted and fined five pounds at the Queen's Bench in Dublin for refusing to serve as high sheriff of the county of the town of Carrickfergus, in a case the presiding judge treated as a test of the law. Members of the House of Commons, and candidates for election to it, were exempt from having to accept a public office where doing so would have disqualified them from serving as MPs, though this exemption did not extend to a requirement to serve in the armed forces. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/