A 16-year-old swaps the beach for the courtroom

Local lawstudentsTop News A 16-year-old swaps the beach for the courtroom Dikastirio Lemesou 16xronos 1536x1152 Relevant News Duty to report abuse rests with the teacher, circular says 17 August 2026 A 16-year-old swaps the beach for the courtroom 17 August 2026 Aigialousa fell without a fight on August 17, 1974 17 August 2026 Ioanna Mantzipa 17 August 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber While most of his classmates are enjoying their summer holidays or meeting friends in cafés, Marios Ioannis Sabounis spends his mornings in a courtroom at Limassol District Court. He sits quietly, takes notes and follows every detail of the proceedings. Marios is 16 and will start his second year of upper secondary school when term begins. He listens to the closing arguments of the defence and the prosecution, follows the questions and the answers, and watches how the judge handles each case. He is not there out of obligation but by choice, drawn to the courtrooms every day by his passion for law. Phileleftheros met him at the District Court on the morning of Thursday, August 6, a month into his time in the courtrooms. His interest in law started early. “From the fourth year of primary school I wanted to be a lawyer,” he said, adding that he had spent about two years looking for a way to come to the court and watch proceedings. A relative put him in touch with the Limassol prosecution office, where he met public prosecutor Giannos Argyrou and began attending hearings with him. Argyrou explains things he has not come across, Marios said, and through the experience he has met a great many people, learned to hold a conversation better and to communicate more easily. The detail that changes a trial Marios has mostly watched cases at Limassol District Court, though he has also sat in at the Criminal Court. Proceedings there are more complex and the terminology harder, he said, so he chose to spend more time at the District Court, where he could understand more. One thing has struck him above all. “The smallest detail can change the whole course of a trial,” he said, and it can lead to a person being acquitted or convicted. For him, though, the greatest value of the experience is the people he has met. He believes some of them will remain his friends and that he will see them again in future. The value of the right question and Socrates’s method Watching lawyers at close quarters, Marios has realised the profession is not as simple as it may appear, and he considers it a fairly difficult one. In a trial you have to be entirely focused, he said. You cannot let your attention wander, and you have to be able to spot details others might miss. Among the things he has taken from his time in court are the value of the right question, of logical thinking and of structuring an argument properly. He said he had learned that you have to use logic and be able to support what you say with arguments. The Socratic method matters too, he said, since a particular line of questioning can lead someone to an answer or a conclusion. Applied properly, he believes it can help considerably in identifying strong and weak points. His goal has not changed, but Marios admits the experience has given him a different view of the prosecutor’s role. He wants to be a lawyer, he said. Before coming to the court he had simply heard the word prosecutor without really knowing what the job involved, and he now understands how important and interesting it is, and that it carries an element of justice. His next big step is studying abroad. He plans to study in the United States and follow the path he chose years ago. For now, though, he will keep sitting on the courtroom benches for the coming days, not as a defendant or a party to a case, but as a young man trying to learn about the world of justice up close. Subscribe to our Newsletter Latest News Duty to report abuse rests with the teacher, circular says Aigialousa fell without a fight on August 17, 1974 Giving voice to the women raped in 1974 Fire guts abandoned Limassol house, arson suspected Firefighters free trapped driver after Nicosia crash Paphos resurfaces its worst roads in three months Cypriot businesses accept cash least in the eurozone Follow en.philenews on Google News and be the first to know all the news about Cyprus and the world.