Incontrovertible information available to 3news.com has confirmed that President Nana Akufo-Addo has finally settled on Ms Sophia Akuffo, a Justice of the Supreme Court for the position of Chief Justice.
Sophia Akuffo, who will be the second female to be appointed to such position, will replace the first female Mrs. Georgina Wood who retires in June after almost a decade of being the fourth most powerful person in the country. The president is the most powerful person in the country followed by the vice president with the speaker of parliament being third most powerful.
The decision to appoint her was decided on Thursday at a marathon cabinet meeting. Unconfirmed report suggests her nomination has been approved by the Council of State.
Article 144 (1) of the 1992 Constitution states: “The Chief Justice shall be appointed by the President acting in consultation with the Council of State and with the approval of Parliament.”
In order of seniority at the apex court, Mr Justice William Atuguba is the next most senior after the current Chief Justice but he is billed to retire soon, with the baton falling automatically in the hands of Ms Akuffo.
Supreme Court justices, Jones Dotse and Anin Yeboah were also tipped as keen contenders to head the third arm of government, the Judiciary.
Justice Akuffo was at the helm of affairs in the infamous Montie 3 case in 2016.
Sophia A. B. Akuffo has been a Judge of the Supreme Court of Ghana for the past two decades.
She 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).
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