A former commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Justice Emile Short, has exalted the performance of Ghana’s outgoing Chief Justice Georgina Wood.

Mrs. Wood retired from public service Wednesday June 7 having reached the mandatory retiring age of 70 after heading Ghana’s judiciary for 10 years. She will be replaced by Justice Sophia Akuffo subject to parliamentary approval.

Speaking Thursday June 8 on Class FM, Justice Short could not hide his admiration of Mrs. Wood’s performance as Ghana’s first female Chief Justice saying “she has performed creditably.”

Appointed by former President JA Kufuor in 2007, Mrs. Wood is the longest serving Chief Justice in the history of Ghana.

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.

She 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.