FIRST WOMAN CHIEF JUSTICE NOMINATED FOR GHANA

PRESIDENT John Agyekum Kufuor, in consultation with the Council of State, has nominated Mrs Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, a Justice of the Supreme Court, for appointment as the Chief Justice of the country.
An official statement signed by Mr Andrew Awuni, the Press Secretary to the President and Presidential Spokesman, and issued in Accra said Mrs Justice Wood’s name had been submitted to Parliament for vetting and approval.
If the nomination of Mrs Justice Wood is approved, it will make her the first female Chief Justice of Ghana and the 12th Chief Justice since independence and the 24th from the pre-independence era.
Her nomination followed the death of Mr Justice George Kingsley Acquah.
Mrs Justice Wood, who will turn 60 on June 8, 2007, was appointed to the Supreme Court in November 2002, having spent more than 33 years on the bench.
Born on June 8, 1947, Mrs Justice Wood attended the Mmofratuo Girls’ Boarding School in Kumasi and the Wesley Girls’ Secondary School in Cape Coast for her General Certificate of Education (GCE) Ordinary and Advanced level.
She proceeded to the University of Ghana, Legon, to pursue her Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) (Hons) degree and decided to join the Ghana Police Service thereafter as a Deputy Superintendent of Police in the Public Prosecutions Unit.
However, after just three years in the Police Service, Mrs Justice Wood left for the bench as a magistrate in 1974 and by dint of hard work she was promoted to the High Court in 1986. In 1991, she was promoted to the Court of Appeal.
Mrs Justice Wood remained at the Court of Appeal for 11 years and was promoted to the Supreme Court in November 2002. Last year, she was made the Chairperson of a committee (the Georgina Wood Committee) which investigated the disappearance of 77 parcels of cocaine on board the MV Benjamin on April 26, 2006 and the 588 kilogrammes of cocaine found in a house at East Legon belonging to two Venezuelans.
Apart from being on the Ghanaian bench, Mrs Justice Wood had since 2000 been a member of the Gambian Supreme Court.
Other positions she has held include external examiner in Advocacy and Ethics at the Ghana School of Law, as well as lecturer in Civil Procedure and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) for the Career Magistrates programme.
She was the chairperson of the ADR Committee on Child Panel (Juvenile justice) and served on the National Partnership for Children’s Trust, an organisation which looks for scholarship for brilliant, needy students.
He is also a member of the Board of Regents of the Central University College.