Prof. Henrietta Mensah-Bonsu
A SENIOR law lecturer at the University of Ghana Law School, Prof. Henrietta J. A. N. Mensah-Bonsu, has been nominated for appointment to the Supreme Court by President Akufo-Addo, bringing to four the number of nominees billed to appear before Parliament.
She is the latest of the President’s Supreme Court appointment recently.
The Supreme Court, as per the 1992 Constitution, is made up of the Chief Justice and not less than nine other Justices of the Supreme Court.
In a primetime announcement in Parliament yesterday, Speaker Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye said the learned professor, who is the President of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, had been nominated alongside two jurists from the Court of Appeal and a private legal practitioner.
He gave the names of the nominees as Justice Issifu Omoro Tanko Amadu, Justice Clemence Jackson Honyenuga, and Mr. Emmanuel Yoni Kulendi.
In an accompanying correspondence read by the Speaker, President Akufo-Addo stated that upon receipt of the Judicial Council’s advice, and in accordance with his duties under Article 144(2), he consulted with the Council of State in submitting the names and curriculum vitae (CVs) of the nominees for appointment to the court.
“I am, therefore, seeking approval of Parliament for the appointment of the nominees as Justices of the Supreme Court,” the correspondence said.
The President indicated that he was fully satisfied that each of the nominees was dully qualified, and eminently fit to discharge the functions of a Justice of the Supreme Court.
“Mr. Speaker, it is my respectful hope and expectation that the approval of the nominees will proceed expeditiously to enable them to assume office as soon as practicable,” the letter indicated.
The nominee was part of the epoch-making National Reconciliation Commission set up by the then President Kufuor to look into the aberrations of the military regimes and to trigger the healing process.
She was also part of the Justice Emile Short Commission set up to investigate the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election violence.
The Prof. was part of the nominations for 2015 but the then President preferred Justices Yaw Appau and Pwamang; there were only two vacancies at the time.
Two of the nominees – Prof Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu and Justice Tanko Amadu – were University of Ghana, Legon, mates from 1977 to 1980; both of them were called to the bar in 1982.
The 1982 Law School year group has three persons on the Supreme Court bench, one of them being Justice Yaw Appau.
Their vetting would be very interesting, as the politicians pose sometimes controversial legal subjects and the nominees’ positions on them.
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By Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House