The New Chief Justice Of Ghana Is Justice Gertrude Torkoroo.

Justice Gertrude Araba Esaaba Torkornoo, a member of the supreme court, has been nominated by President Nana Akufo-Addo to replace Justice Kwasi Anin Yeboah, who will retire from the tribunal next month.

If confirmed by parliament, Justice Mrs. Torkornoo will become Ghana's third female Chief Justice, following in the footsteps of Justices Georgina Theodora Wood and Sophia Akuffo.

In a letter to the chairman of the Council of State, Nana Otuo Serebour, the president stated that Justice Gertrude Torkornoo, a member of the supreme court since 2019 and a member of the judiciary for the past nineteen years, is qualified and capable of performing the duties of Chief Justice.

Profile of Justice Gertrude Torkornoo

Gertrude Torkornoo is from the Central Region of Ghana, Winneba. She was born in Cape Coast on September 11, 1962. She received her ordinary level certificate from Wesley Girls' High School and her advanced level certificate from Achimota School, both of which she attended. She attended the University of Ghana and graduated in 1986 from the Ghana School of Law. She earned a Postgraduate Diploma in International Law and Organization from Erasmus University's International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in the Netherlands in 2001. She received an LLM in Intellectual Property Law from Golden Gate University in the United States in 2011. [3]

Career

Prior to becoming an associate at Fugar & Co., a law firm in Accra, Justice Torkornoo volunteered at the FIDA Legal Aid Service and interned at Nabarro Nathanson in London. In 1994, she rejoined the company (Fugar & Co.) as a director. She co-founded Sozo Law Consult in January 1997, where she served as Managing Partner until 14 May 2004, when she was appointed to the High Court of Ghana.[4] She served as a High Court judge until she was elevated to the Court of Appeal in October 2012. In November of 2019, Justice Torkornoo was appointed to the Supreme Court of Ghana.[3] The date of her inauguration was December 17, 2019.[

Leadership description

Justice Torkornoo has held multiple leadership positions within the judiciary. In her role as chair of the E-Justice Committee, she has lead the planning of the automation of all levels of courts, as well as the procurement and incorporation of the use of electronic resources and software into the Judicial Service's operations.

Since 2013, she has also served as the Supervising Judge of commercial courts, where she has set the agenda for and presided over meetings and programs of the Commercial Courts Users Committee.

Justice Torkornoo oversaw the implementation of the Business Environment Engineering Project (BEEP), which was funded by the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID). Her leadership in this initiative sparked and advised the Ministry of Trade and Industry on the implementation of Users Committees in other institutions participating in the BEEP project. The BEEP initiative had a further impact on the MOTI's efforts to integrate the Business Environment Reforms into national institutions.

She serves as the chair of the Technical Working Group on 'Enforcing Contracts', which was established to guide the evolution of the business law environment. The outcomes of the BEEP project within the Judiciary included the design of necessary reforms in the monitoring and evaluation of data collection currently being implemented by the Judiciary, the design of necessary reforms in the post-judgment and execution portion of justice delivery, and reforms in stream lining of ADR in commercial justice delivery in Circuit and High Courts, which led to the passage of High Court (Civil Procedure) Amendment Rules 2020, CI 133.

Justice Torkornoo has served as a member of the faculty and Governing Board of the Judicial Training Institute, vice chair of the Internship and Clerkship Committee of the Judiciary since 2012, member and chair of the E-Judgment Committee since 2010, member and chair of the Publications and Editorial Committee of the Association of Magistrates and Judges of Ghana since 2006, and member and chair of various ad-hoc committees required for the smooth administration of the work of the judiciar

Justice Torkornoo has served as a judicial leader in the development and oversight of a number of judicial reform initiatives involving the European Union, USAID, DFID, and other African countries. Since 2016, she has also been a member of the Law Reform Commission.

She was a member of the seven-member jury that heard John Mahama's 2020 election petition against the Ghanaian Electoral Commission and Nana Akufo-Addo.