An Overview Of Paul Baffoe Bonnie, The Incoming Chief Justic

President John Dramani Mahama has proposed Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie to be Ghana’s Chief Justice.

This comes after Chief Justice Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey Torkornoo was removed from her position as Chief Justice and Head of the Supreme Court.

Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie was born on December 26, 1956, and attended the Goaso Local Authority Primary and Middle Schools before passing the Middle School Leaving Certificate exams in the late 1960s.

Between 1969 and 1976, he received his GCE Ordinary Level and GCE Advanced Level certificates from Konongo Odumase Secondary School. He continued on to the Ghana School of Law after attending the University of Ghana.

He was good friends with former Chief Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah and shared a room with the late former NPP General Secretary Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, well known as Sir John, during his time in law school. With affection, he referred to the three of them as “a trio of rural law students”.

In 1983, Justice Baffoe-Bonnie received a bar call in Ghana. He started out as a Circuit Court Judge in Kumasi before moving on to serve as a High Court Judge in Duayaw Nkwanta. In 2006, the Court of Appeal appointed him.

He was named a Justice of the Ghanaian Supreme Court by President John Agyekum Kufuor in June 2008.

He was a member of the Supreme Court judges who decided the historic election case that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) brought in 2013. The petition sought to invalidate almost four million votes from the 2012 general elections because of purported irregularities. The court finally denied the petition.

Justice Baffoe-Bonnie’s mother, Ama Kyerewaa, is from Breman in Kumasi, while his father, Opanyin Baffoe-Bonnie, is from Sewua in the Bosomtwe District.

Patience Baffoe-Bonnie, the Director-General of Prisons, is his wife.

In addition, he is the brother of the late Kwasi Sainti Baffoe-Bonnie, who founded Radio Gold’s parent company, Network Broadcasting Company Limited.