President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has announced Justice Sophia Akuffo as the new Chief Justice of Ghana.
The President at the ceremony on Friday said he believes the Supreme Court Justice will be fair and independent at her new job, as she has been throughout her career.
“I have known Justice Sophia Akuffo for well over 40 years, indeed she is my first junior in practice. She impressed me considerably with her hard work, her capacity for detailed research, her independence of mind and spirit, honesty and integrity, her deep seated respect for the rule of law and her abiding belief in the sovereignty of the almighty God. I believe these are qualities which sustained her brilliant career as a lawyer.
“She has been one of the leading lights of the court since her appointment…I have no doubt that she will be a worthy successor of chief justice Wood. I expect discipline, fairness, integrity and the continuing modernisation of judicial activities to be the hallmark of her tenure as Chief Justice,” the President said.
According to Article 144 (1) of Ghana’s 1992 Constitution: “The Chief Justice shall be appointed by the President acting in consultation with the Council of State and with the approval of Parliament.”
The outgoing Chief Justice who has been in office for a decade Georgina Theodora Wood (appointed June 2007) exits office in June 2017.
Justice Akuffo becomes Ghana’s second female Chief Justice after Wood.
Profile
Sophia A.B. Akuffo has been a Judge of the Supreme Court of Ghana for the past two decades.
Sophia Akuffo trained as a lawyer under Nana Akufo-Addo who had her Masters in Law (LLM) from the Havard University in the United States.
She has been a member of the Governing Committee of the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute and the Chairperson of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Task Force.
In January 2006 she was elected one of the first judges of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights initially elected for two years, she was subsequently re-elected until 2014 and is at present serving as Vice-President of the Court.
She has written The Application of Information & Communication Technology in the Judicial Process – the Ghanaian Experience, a presentation to the African Judicial Network Ghana (2002).
One of her famous cases is when she presided over the Montie 3 in 2016.
