Justice Sir Dennis Adjei elected judge of the African Court of Human and People’s Rights
Justice Dennis Dominic Adjei’s election comes years after the first Ghanaian, a former Chief Justice, Sophia Akuffo, rose from being a member to becoming the president of the court some few years ago.
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A Justice of Ghana’s Court of Appeal, Justice Sir Dennis Dominic Adjei, has been elected as a judge of the African Court of Human and People’s Rights based in Arusha in Tanzania.
The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights is the judicial arm of the African Union and one of the three regional human rights courts together with the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human rights. It was established to protect the human and peoples’ rights in Africa principally through the delivery of judgments. The Court has its permanent seat in Arusha, the United Republic of Tanzania.
The court is composed of eleven judges nominated by member states of the AU and elected by the latter's Assembly of Heads of State and Government. Judges serve six-year terms and may only be re-elected once. The president of the court resides and works full-time in Arusha, while the other ten judges work on a part-time basis. Registry, managerial, and administrative functions are executed by a registrar.
Justice Adjei will be the 11th judge of the court, replacing a Rwandan, Justice Marie Therese Mukamulisa, who occupied the seat prior to it being declared vacant in May 2022 by the African Union.
Subsequent to the seat being declared vacant, a male and female were selected by the AU from each of the African blocs, after which five persons including a Ghanaian, Justice Dennis Dominic Adjei, and other four from Guinea Bissau, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Rwanda were shortlisted.
Afterward, the five candidates were voted upon on three consecutive rounds of the process, and two of them; Justice Dennis Adjei from Ghana and Pedro Sinai Nhatitima from Mozambique were further shortlisted.
Also, the two shortlisted candidates were voted upon in like manner by the Union after which Justice Dennis Adjei emerged atop of the two and per the rules, was subsequently subjected to voting by the entire 51 of the eligible union members out of which he attained 41 votes of the 45 members who took part in the election.
Justice Dennis Dominic Adjei’s election comes years after the first Ghanaian, a former Chief Justice, Sophia Akuffo, rose from being a member to becoming the president of the court some few years ago.
