President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has announced Justice Sophia Akuffo as the new Chief Justice of Ghana.

The President who made the announcement Friday said he believes the Supreme Court Justice will be fair and independent at her new job, as she has been throughout her career.

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 current Chief Justice who has been in charge of Ghana’s Judicial Service for a decade Georgina Theodora Wood (appointed June 2007) bows out of office in June 2017.

Justice Akuffo becomes Ghana’s second female Chief Justice after Wood.

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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.