Crown prosecutor

My official title is Attorney General’s prosecutor. People use different expressions to refer to me: Crown prosecutor, the Crown, the prosecution or just, the prosecutor.

My title doesn’t say much about my role and functions. Briefly, I am a lawyer specializing in criminal law and working exclusively for the government. In court I prosecute people accused of committing criminal offences. In a way, I work for society at large. My role is not necessarily to win the case, but to try to uncover the truth.

Here is a general idea of what I do:

When the police have finished an investigation that concludes that a particular person has committed an offence, they bring me their investigation report. I study it carefully. I search the file for evidence of offences.

After studying a file, if the evidence does not seem complete to me, I ask the police to give me more details or to continue the investigation. If this is impossible and no other evidence is available, I reject the complaint, meaning I decide that there will be no prosecution against the suspect.

If, on the other hand, the evidence is sufficient, I authorize the laying of criminal charges. In practice, I decide what charges are supported by the evidence from the investigation file. After that, according to my instructions, an assistant prints the charges on the “Information,” the official document that is the starting point for any criminal accusation.

In the courtroom, I carry out several functions. My tasks depend in large part on the size of the office in which I work. I used to work in a sparsely-populated region where there were only two of us in the prosecutors’ office. I took care of about half the files, including all the procedural steps. In one week I could authorize charges in my office, then attend all of the appearances in court, the interim release hearings, the preliminary inquiries, the trials, sentencings, and appeals (for more details on these different steps, consult the “parcours judiciaire”). Now I am in Montreal. There are more than one hundred prosecutors here and I take care of specific tasks – each of the prosecutors is quite specialized.

I make important decisions under pressure on a daily basis, and, because I don’t always have the time I would like to be able to do it properly, I have to keep my mind sharp. There are definitely a lot of files to keep on top of: I easily deal with thirty files per day. For court appearances, there are sometimes more than one hundred files on the roll for a single day of hearings!

I often find myself between divergent and often opposing interests: of the victim, the accused, his lawyer, the police, the media (and public opinion), the judge, and my boss. In a certain sense, to keep my credibility, I have to be able to justify each of my decisions to all of these people.

I work at the heart of the action in a stimulating environment. I am never bored and the days go by at a crazy pace. Plus, I really have the feeling that I am performing a service to society.