Justice Akoto-Bamfo bows out from Supreme Court

JUSTICE OF the Supreme Court, Justice Vida Akoto-Bamfo, has retired from active service after delivering her valedictory (farewell) judgement in the Civil Appeal case between Kwadwo Dankwa & 259 Others vrs AngloGold Ashanti (formerly Ashanti Goldfields) in court today.

Justice Akoto-Bamfo, who read the unanimous judgement in the case presided over by the Chief Justice, saw all 15 justices of the apex court present.

She was joined on the panel by Chief Justice Mrs Sophia Akuffo, Justice Julius Ansah, Justice Sophia Adenyira, Justice Jones Dotse, Justice Anin Yeboah and Justice Baffoe-Bonnie.

Others include Justice Sulemana Gbadegbe, Justice Alfred Anthony Benin, Justice Yaw Appau, Justice Gabriel Pwamang, Justice Samuel Marfo Sau, Justice Nene Amegatcher, Justice Agnes M.A Dordzie, and Prof Nii Ashie Kotey.

Career appointments Justice Akoto-Bamfo was nominated to the Supreme Court alongside Justices Benjamin Teiko Aryeetey and Nasiru Sulemana Gbadegbe by President John Evans Atta Mills in 2009.

She was born on February 7, 1949 and has been on the Bench for the past 38 years, becoming a Supreme Court judge for the last 10 years. She was awarded LLB degree from the University of Ghana in June 1972 and in 1975, she acquired her Qualifying Certificate in Law at the Ghana Law School.

Justice Akoto-Bamfo was appointed a District Magistrate Grade 1 in 1981, and rose through the ranks to become a High Court judge in 1991 and subsequently was appointed a justice of the Court of Appeal in 1999 and then to the Apex Court of the land in 2009.

Justice Akoto-Bamfo was one of the nine judges who sat on the famous election petition case between then candidate Akufo-Addo and John Mahama.

In that case Justices William Atuguba, Sophia Adenyira, N. S. Gbadegbe and Vida Akoto-Bamfo dismissed the petitioners’ claims for the annulment of a total of 3,931,339 votes due to electoral irregularities in the December 7, 2012 presidential election.