JOY NEWS can confirm that President Akuffo Addo has now firmly settled on Justice Sophia Akuffo as Ghana’s next Chief Justice following a cabinet meeting Thursday night.
After frank discussions with his cabinet last night at which other names such as Justices Jones Dotse and Anim Yeboah came up, the President made a strong case for Madam Sophia Akuffo.
It is now a done deal and it is just a matter of time before the President outdoors Sophia Akuffo as his choice for Chief Justice.
JOY NEWS is also learning that the President will at midday Friday make a major announcement.
She will be the fourth most powerful leader in Ghana following after the President, the Vice-President and Speaker of Parliament.
For the second consecutive time, Ghana’s Chief Justice is a woman, a historic feat after the appointment of Justice Georgina Wood in 2007 made her Ghana’s first female Chief Justice.
Justice Sophia Akuffo is the second most senior judge at the Supreme Court pipped to the senior most by Justice William Atuguba who retires next year.
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 and 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. She rose to become a Vice-President and later President of the African 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. She remarked while reading her judgement ‘even the president cannot control judges’.
Current Chief Justice, Georgina Theodora Wood is leaving office in June after 10 years service as the head of the third arm of government, the Judiciary.
