Being retired now and obviously having more time on my hands than I could ever find in my heydays as a practicing lawyer, I am enjoying the luxury of catching up on reading a plethora of books and other material that I always wished to have read then.

One of the books that I came across and had almost forgotten about was Edward Attard's 'Delitti f'Malta: 200 sena ta' Omiċidji 1800-2000'. In it are some of the trials by jury that I had prosecuted over the years when I was employed at the Attorney General's Office and was entrusted with public prosecution duties.

Reading the narration by Edward Attard revived in me some of the unforgettable episodes, moments and anecdotes that I had experienced throughout those years. It was a mixture of drama, tension and even humour when reminiscing about them.

Experiences such as when I got caught up in the thick of a sudden violent affray in the courtroom as soon as the presiding judge finished reading his decision to sentence the accused to life imprisonment with the consequence that I had to be escorted out by the police through the judge's secret chambers, or when for a whole month throughout which a particular trial lasted I had a 24-hour police presence in front of my residence's main door to protect me and my family after receiving anonymous threats on my and my immediate family's lives, can hardly be forgotten. They remain vivid in my mind to this day.

Of course, light moments were not lacking. I remember a particular case where the accused, despite the presiding judge's solicitation to provide him with a defence counsel, persistently refused to be so assisted, declaring that he had no trust in any lawyer except me! Although he conducted his own defence and was eventually found guilty, he incredibly came over to me at the end of the trial before being led away by the police to heartily thank me for giving him a fair and just prosecution. That was really an unforgettable and flattering moment for me.

For most of you, your perception of a public prosecutor's job is what you see on TV, often typecast as the opposing counsel in a protagonist's fight. But in reality, public prosecutors play an integral role in the system of justice. Without public prosecutors, crimes against the community cannot be tried.

Public prosecutors are the 'gatekeepers' of criminal justice, insofar as without their initiative there cannot be the prosecution and repression of crimes. Prosecution services are, in fact, society's principal means of pursuing punishment of criminal behaviour and its interface with the adjudicative power.

After a few years in private practice, followed by a brief stint as legal counsel to the then Housing Department, I succeeded in joining the Attorney General's Office, starting off as a simple counsel to the Republic to be promoted to senior counsel following several years getting experience in civil, administrative and constitutional law.

Destiny wanted, however, that, at a time when public prosecutors were hard to come by at the AG's Office, I was chosen to be tried out in determining whether I could make the grade and meet expectations of a budding public prosecutor.

I clearly remember my first prosecution in my first trial by jury, for which I had to prepare at short notice and against two of the most formidable and experienced defence lawyers at the time, namely Manuel Mallia and Giannella De Marco.

On paper, the prosecution did not appear to be capable of beating the odds for a clear acquittal of the accused. So you can imagine me with rubbery feet on the first day of the trial when the jury had to be empanelled, following which I was expected to deliver my opening address to the judge and jury.

Still, I managed to put my all into it, convincing myself that, in the circumstances, I had nothing to lose. And lose I did not, as, it seems, I don't know how, I somehow succeeded in mesmerising the jury to return a guilty verdict after hours of deliberation.

That set me off on a relatively long track of years of prosecutions in various trials by jury, taking in wilful homicide cases, drug cases, aggravated theft, drug conspiracies and drug importation, not to mention also serious sexual offences. Sometimes I won and sometimes I lost cases.

In my time as a public prosecutor, I knew to expect camaraderie and a sense of mission at the AG's Office. I didn't expect it, though, to influence how I thought about our criminal justice system. But it did.

Three types of culture shaped how I saw the rights of the people I prosecuted: the culture of the prosecutor's office, Maltese popular culture and the culture created by the modern legal norms of criminal justice.

Nobody taught me to think that way, and nobody had to. I learnt it by watching previous prosecutors make the sorts of arguments and decisions I had made and seeing how they actually impacted human lives.

Public prosecution is somewhat of an art and a science at the same time. I state this as convincing a jury requires certain oratory skills and strategy.

In every trial by jury I prosecuted, I always made it a point to suppress my humanity in favour of thinking like a prosecuting lawyer, setting aside emotions and engaging in a cold and calculated analysis of facts followed by a dispassionate application of the law.

                    (*Part II will be published in next Sunday's issue.)

Dr Mark Said is a lawyer