Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira, SC, is call­ing on young lawyers to con­sid­er be­com­ing pros­e­cu­tors, say­ing the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) re­mains sig­nif­i­cant­ly un­der­staffed at a time when Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to grap­ple with se­ri­ous crime.

In a state­ment di­rect­ed at young lawyers and law stu­dents, Vieira said pros­e­cu­tion of­fers an op­por­tu­ni­ty to make a mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tion to the fight against crime while strength­en­ing one of the coun­try’s most im­por­tant in­sti­tu­tions.

“There are few more mean­ing­ful ways for a young lawyer to con­tribute di­rect­ly to tack­ling the scourge of crime while strength­en­ing one of the na­tion’s most im­por­tant in­sti­tu­tions,” Vieira said.

“To those who are be­gin­ning their le­gal jour­ney, I en­cour­age you to con­sid­er an­swer­ing this call. You will gain in­valu­able ex­pe­ri­ence. You will grow as an ad­vo­cate. You will serve your coun­try. And, in do­ing so, you will help strength­en the rule of law at a time when T&T needs com­mit­ted and ca­pa­ble pros­e­cu­tors more than ever.”

He added: “Our jus­tice sys­tem de­pends not on­ly on good laws, but on good lawyers will­ing to serve. Per­haps your ca­reer should be­gin there.”

He de­scribed the DPP’s Of­fice as “one of the in­dis­pens­able in­sti­tu­tions” with­in T&T’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of en­sur­ing crim­i­nal of­fences are pros­e­cut­ed fair­ly, pro­fes­sion­al­ly and in­de­pen­dent­ly.
He stressed that pros­e­cu­tors serve jus­tice it­self.

“They serve vic­tims, pro­tect the pub­lic, up­hold the rights of ac­cused per­sons, and help main­tain pub­lic con­fi­dence in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice,” he said.

Be­yond pub­lic ser­vice, Vieira said there are sig­nif­i­cant pro­fes­sion­al ben­e­fits to a ca­reer in pros­e­cu­tion.
He said pros­e­cu­tors quick­ly de­vel­op a mas­tery of ev­i­dence law and crim­i­nal pro­ce­dure, skills that re­main valu­able re­gard­less of the ca­reer path they lat­er choose.

“The court­room is an un­for­giv­ing but ex­cep­tion­al teacher. It builds con­fi­dence, sound judg­ment, re­silience and the abil­i­ty to think clear­ly un­der pres­sure. Those lessons can­not eas­i­ly be repli­cat­ed else­where,” Vieira said.

Not­ing that sev­er­al of T&T’s most re­spect­ed le­gal fig­ures be­gan their ca­reers as pros­e­cu­tors, in­clud­ing for­mer pres­i­dents An­tho­ny Car­mona and Paula-Mae Weekes, Jus­tices of Ap­peal Mark Mo­hammed, Gillian Lucky and Mal­colm Holdip and the late Dana See­ta­hal, Vieira added that lawyers do not nec­es­sar­i­ly have to spend their en­tire ca­reers in pros­e­cu­tion to ben­e­fit from the ex­pe­ri­ence.

“Not every lawyer will spend an en­tire ca­reer as a pros­e­cu­tor, nor is that nec­es­sary. Even a few years of ser­vice can pro­vide a foun­da­tion that will ben­e­fit you for decades, while mak­ing a mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tion to the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice,” he said.