Judge Maurice Caruana Curran passes away

Former judge Maurice Caruana Curran, founder of Din l-Art Helwa, has passed away, aged 97.

Born in Valletta of a Maltese father and Irish mother, he was educated at the Old Lyceum and at the Royal University of Malta where he graduated B.A. (1939) and LL.D. (1943).

At the age of 23, during World War Two, he served as Assistant District Commissioner with general duties in the Lieutenant Governor’s Office assisting with humanitarian causes and the organisation of Malta’s air raid shelters.

In 1943, he was offered a Rhodes Scholarship at the University of Oxford which he reluctantly had to turn down to assist his family and his beloved Valletta to recover from the ravages of wartime.

In 1945/46 he was a leading member of the Malta National Assembly that made the proposals for the return of self-government in the 1947 Constitution.

An active athlete, he was President of the Malta Football Association and of the Malta Amateur Athletic Association. He was a much-loved actor and played leading roles for the Malta Amateur Dramatic Company and British Council Players.

In 1959, while Deputy Attorney General, he was granted a foreign leader Fellowship in the United States to study matters of legal and civic interest.

During his long and versatile career, Caruana Curran was one of Malta’s most distinguished lawyers specialising in criminal law. He was appointed one of Her Majesty’s judges in 1963 at the age of 45, and from 1974 of the Republic of Malta serving as Senior Judge and on many occasions as Acting Chief Justice.

He was a lecturer in law at the Royal University of Malta from 1950 to 1963. He also delivered a number of landmark judgments in criminal, civil and administrative law and is considered an icon by the Maltese legal community.

While serving on the Bench, he was most noted for his independent mind and his forthright defence of human rights. The former President of Malta, Dr. Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, described him as ‘the Islands’ bastion of liberty’.

He retired from the Bench in 1983. In 1987 Judge Caruana Curran was appointed President of the Medical Council of Malta. He was also Chancellor of the University of Malta from 1988 to 1995.

Caruana Curran is considered by all on the islands of Malta to be the pioneer of the national conservation movement. In July 1965, he founded Din l- Art Ħelwa, Malta’s National Trust.

Caruana Curran was soon to become an outspoken and fearless leader in the field of environmental and heritage conservation.