President Akufo-Addo has nominated Justice Gertrude Araba Esaaba Torkornoo, a member of the Supreme Court, as the country’s new Chief Justice.
Justice Torkornoo is in line to become Ghana’s third female Chief Justice after former Justice Sophia Akuffo and Justice Georgina Theodora if Parliament approves her nomination.
She will replace Justice Kwasi Anin Yeboah, whose retirement is due in May this year.
The president in a letter to the Council of State, said Gertrude Araba Esabaa Torkornoo who has long served the Supreme Court and has also been a member of the Judiciary for the last nineteen years, qualifies and deserves to be the next Chief Justice.
Profile of Justice Gertrude Torkornoo
Gertrude Torkornoo is a native of Winneba in Ghana’s Central Region. She was born in Cape Coast on September 11, 1962.
She attended Wesley Girls’ High School, where she received her certificate for the ordinary level, and Achimota School, where she received her certificate for the advanced level. She attended the University of Ghana and earned her law degree there in 1986. She earned a Postgraduate Diploma in International Law and Organization from Erasmus University in the Netherlands’ International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in 2001.
She received an LLM in Intellectual Property Law from Golden Gate University in the United States in 2011.
Justice Torkornoo was appointed a Supreme Court judge in 2019 and has served on the Ghanaian bench since 2004. Since 2005, she has participated actively in the main reform agenda and operations of the Ghanaian judiciary and judicial service. She was one of the first Justices of the Commercial Division of the High Court.
Prior to joining Fugar & Co., a law firm in Accra as an associate, Justice Torkornoo worked as a volunteer at the FIDA Legal Aid Service and did an internship with Nabarro Nathanson in London.
She returned to the firm (Fugar & Co.) in 1994 to become a director.
In January 1997, she co-founded Sozo Law Consult where she worked as Managing Partner until 14 May 2004 when she was appointed a Justice of the High Court of Ghana.
She worked as a High Court judge until October 2012 when she was elevated to the Court of Appeal.
Justice Torkornoo was nominated to the Supreme Court of Ghana in November 2019.
She was sworn into office on 17 December 2019.