President Nana Akufo-Addo has nominated Gertrude Araba Esaaba Torkornoo, a member of the Supreme Court, to replace Justice Kwasi Anin Yeboah, who will retire from the judiciary next month.
If confirmed by the legislature, 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 able to carry out the duties of Chief Justice.
Justice Gertrude Torkornoo's Biography
Gertrude Torkornoo is a native of Winneba, in Ghana's Central Region. In Cape Coast, she was born on September 11, 1962. She attended Wesley Girls' High School, where she earned a certificate at the ordinary level, and Achimota School, where she earned a certificate at the advanced level. She graduated from the Ghana School of Law in 1986 after completing her studies at the University of Ghana. In 2001, she received a Postgraduate Diploma in International Law and Organization from the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), which is affiliated with Erasmus University in the Netherlands. In 2011, she obtained an LLM in Intellectual Property Law from Golden Gate University, United States. [3]
Career
Before joining Fugar & Co., an Accra law firm as an associate, Justice Torkornoo worked as a volunteer for the FIDA Legal Aid Service and interned for Nabarro Nathanson in London. 1994 marked her return to the company (Fugar & Co.) as a director. In January 1997, she co-founded Sozo Law Consult, where she served as Managing Partner until 14 May 2004, when she was appointed to the Ghanaian High Court.[4] Prior to her elevation to the Court of Appeal in October 2012, she served as a judge on the High Court. In November of 2019, Justice Torkornoo was appointed to Ghana's highest court.[3] On December 17, 2019, she was inaugurated into office.[
Profile of leadership
Justice Torkornoo has held a number of leadership positions in the judicial service. In her role as chair of the E-Justice Committee, she has led the planning of the automation of all levels of courts, as well as the procurement and incorporation of electronic resources and software into the work of the Judicial Service.
Since 2013, she has also served as the Supervising Judge of commercial courts, where she has established the agenda for and presided over meetings and programs of the Commercial Courts Users Committee.
Justice Torkornoo presided over the British Department for International Development (DFID)-funded Business Environment Engineering Project (BEEP) implementation. Her leadership in this initiative sparked and advised the Ministry of Trade and Industry on how to implement Users Committees in other institutions that participated in the BEEP project. The BEEP initiative had a further impact on the active development of the Business Environment Reforms being implemented by the MOTI within national institutions.
She serves as the chair of the Technical Working Group on 'Enforcing Contracts', which was established to oversee 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 phase 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 is 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.
Justice Torkornoo has served as a judicial leader in the development and oversight of numerous reform initiatives of the Judiciary involving the European Union, USAID, DFID, and collaborations with other African nations. In addition, she has served on the Law Reform Commission since 2016.
She was a member of the seven-person tribunal that heard John Mahama's petition against the Electoral Commission of Ghana and Nana Akufo-Addo regarding the 2020 election.