Chief Justice calls on academics to revise legal authored books
He added that such edits were necessary because judges sometimes employ revised texts of legal books when writing their judgements.
The Chief Justice, Kwasi Anin Yeboah has made a call to those in academia to maintain a practice of revising legal books by professors of law.
While speaking at the launch of a book by Sir Prof. Kofi Kumado, titled, ‘Handbook of the Constitutional Law of Ghana and its History’, he particularly asked that the work of the Professor should be revised on a regular basis.
“It is our wish that this book should stand the test of time and it should not be like most law books. Justice Ollennu died, nobody revised his book, Bentsi-Enchill died, nobody revised his book, lately Professor Kludzi, one of the prolific writers of our time, he died and I don’t think I’ve heard anything, that anybody is seriously revising his book. Please as it was said in Tufour vs Attorney-General, the constitution is a living organism. So we want those in academia, please a passionate appeal from me, as the Chief Justice of the Republic, to invite you, to do justice and honour to Professor Kumado, by seeing to it that this book will be edited on a regular basis,” he said.
He added that such edits were necessary because judges sometimes employ revised texts of legal books when writing their judgements.
“Indeed if you’re on the bench and you’re writing a judgement, you need some of these books because the professors take their time to do a critique of cases that have been decided. So it makes you think deeper, just to let others appreciate, that we are also going the extra mile to enrich the judgements.”
Prof. Kumado’s book, the ‘Handbook of the Constitutional Law of Ghana and its History’, is a 22 chapter book based on the syllabus of the Constitutional Law course at the University of Ghana School of Law.
The book also contains historical underpinnings of the Constitution.
According to the author, knowledge of this history will aid the interpretation and proper understanding of the constitutional text.
