Kobina Arku Korsah

Sir Kobina Arku Korsah ( April 3, 1894 - January 25, 1967 ) was the last Chief Justice of the British Colony of Gold Coast (1956 to March 6, 1957) and the first Chief Justice of Ghana . Korsah was the first Ghanaian to serve as Chief Justice of the Gold Coast Colony; thereafter he held office from the independence of Ghana in March 1957 until his dismissal in December 1963.

Career

In 1942, the lawyer Korsah, along with William Ofori Atta, became one of the first two Ghanaians to be appointed to the judicial service under Governor Sir Alan Burns .

He was beaten by Elizabeth II in 1955 to a Knight Bachelor and in 1960 to Knight Commander of the British Empire .

In 1959, Korsah was one of the 25 founding members of the Ghana Academy of Arts an Sciences , at that time still under the name Ghana Academy of Learning (until 1961).

As Chief Justice, Korsah served as the presiding judge in a trial against those accused of the 1962 bombing of Ghana's first President Kwame Nkrumah. After the trial, Nkrumah dismissed the Chief Justice in December 1963, in violation of the 1960 constitution 69 years old from office.