Justice Adinyira retires; advises lawyers against filing needless appeals
Justice Sophia Ophelia Adjeibea Adinyira has retired from the Supreme Court Bench with a caution to lawyers to stop from filing needless appeals at the apex court.
At a farewell ceremony at the Supreme Court on Tuesday, she said: “some lawyers actually waste their clients’ time and money by chasing minor legal points up to the Supreme Court and neglecting the substantive matter pending at the trial court.”
Justice Adinyira has been in public service for 42.
“I will not say you also waste the Supreme Court’s time. So lawyers take a hint. The Justices I am leaving behind have not yet meddled with age on the Bench and I will not be around to restrain them from throwing out your cases willingly,” Justice Adinyira added.
Justice Adinyira also urged lawyers to offer adequate legal services to the poor and marginalised in society. She called on the legal community to step up their game in that area.
Justice Adinyira on Tuesday, July 30, 2019, delivered her valedictory judgement in the case of the Centre for Juvenile Delinquency versus Ghana Revenue Authority and Two Others, as she bids farewell to the Bench after some 35 years of service to Ghana.
About Justice Adinyira
Justice Adinyira was born on 8th June 1947.
She was appointed to the Supreme Court on March 15, 2006, during the Presidency of John Agyekum Kufuor and has served at the Supreme Court for 13 years.
She exits the Bench as the third most senior Judge out the current number of fifteen.
She was a 9-member panel that heard and delivered judgement on the famous Election Petition case in 2013.
She had her legal training at the University of Ghana and the Ghana School of Law and was called to the Ghana Bar in 1973.
Justice Adinyira worked at the Attorney General’s Department before being appointed to the High Court in 1989.
She also served as a Judge of the United Nations Appeals Tribunal from July 2009 to June 2016, sitting in New York and Geneva.
Adinyira is a member of the International Association of Women Judges and chairs the National Multi-sectoral Committee on Child Protection.
She is also a member of the General Legal Counsel, the body responsible for legal education in Ghana.