President Nana Akufo-Addo had glowing words for the Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, as he nominated her successor, Sophia Akuffo on Friday.
“Her career has been extraordinary and I pay warm tribute to her distinguished service to our nation and I wish her a well-earned retirement even though her public service will not be over as a place on the Council of State awaits her,” President Akufo-Addo said.
After her retirement on June 8, 2017, Georgina Wood will become a member of the council of state, since the advisory council to the President must also include a former Chief Justice, per Article 89(2)(a)(i) of the Constitution.
The council, when constituted in February 2017, had no former Chief Justice representative as there was no living former Chief Justice at the time.
Georgina Wood was the first the female Chief Justice of Ghana, and she becomes the longest-serving Chief Justice, since her appointment in 2007.
Her appointment made her the most powerful woman in Ghana’s political history for a time, till the appointment of Justice Joyce Adeline Bamford-Addo as the first female Speaker of the 5th Parliament of Ghana in January 2009.
Since taking office, Georgina Wood has sworn-in three persons as President; the late John Evans Atta-Mills, John Dramani Mahama and Nana Akufo-Addo.
Georgina Wood worked with the Ghana Police Service as a deputy superintendent and public prosecutor for three years before joining the Judicial Service as a District Magistrate in 1974.
She rose through the Circuit and High Courts to become the presiding judge of the Appeal Court in 1991 and was then appointed to the Supreme Court on November 12, 2002, an appointment she had earlier declined.
Georgina Wood captured major public attention in 2006 when she chaired the Georgina Wood Committee, which was set up to investigate the disappearance of some 77 parcels of cocaine from the infamous MV Benjamin ship.
–
By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana