Caruana Curran was born in Valletta in 1918 and was educated at the Lyceum and the RUM from where he graduated BA (1939) and LL.D. (1943). He served as assistant district commissioner during World War II.
After some years in private practice, Caruana Curran joined the attorney general’s office as crown counsel in 1949. In 1957 he was appointed deputy attorney general, and led the prosecution in several leading criminal trails. In 1959 he was granted a foreign leader fellowship in the US to study matters of legal and civic interest. He was a lecturer in law at the RUM (1950-63).
In 1963 Camana Curran was appointed judge in the superior courts. During his 20-year tenure he sat in all the divisions of the courts and served as senior judge in the constitutional court and the court of appeal. He also was acting chief justice on several occasions. He presided over the most notable criminal trials of the period, including the trial of Dr Alexander Cachia Zammit and his brother Lawrence, who were both acquitted. He also delivered a number of landmark judgements in diverse branches of law.
Dr Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, then minister of education and environment, referred to Caruana Curran as ‘a bastion of our liberty’. He was chairman of the Malta Arbitration Tribunal (1963-71). He retired from the Bench in 1983.
After his retirement, Camana Curran was asked to conduct an inquiry into the ill-treatment of prisoners at Corradino Prisons. As commissioner for prisons and the treatment of offenders, he drew up the new prison regulations which were brought into force in 1995. He
proposed several other items on legislation relating to the treatment of offenders, including the suspended sentence.
Caruana Curran has been prominently connected with the environment and the historic and national heritage conservation movement in Malta. He was one of the founders of Din 1-Art Heiwa set up in 1965 to safeguard the national heritage and has been its president since. He is also a council member of Europa Nostra.
In 1987 Caruana Curran was appointed president of the Medical Council of Malta. He was also chancellor of the UM (1988-95). He was nominated officer of the Order of Merit of Malta in 1993 in recognition of his services to the country. In 1995 the UM conferred on him the degree of doctor of literature (honoris causa) with the title of chancellor emeritus in recognition of his contribution to learning and culture. In June 2005 Caruana Curran received the Europa Nostra Cultural Heritage Award for his lifetime contribution to cultural heritage. In July of the same year he was made Officier des Arts et des Letters, an honorary French decoration from the French Ambassador to Malta.
Caruana Curran has written poetry and several papers on legal and environmental matters. His publications include The Legal Procurator - A Study of the Profession (1950).
Caruana Curran married Katherine Gatt in 1947 (d. 1976) and they had a son, Paul and two daughters, Simone and Louisa (d. 1968). He married Cettina Psaila in 1982.