Archer’s death creates vacuum on Council of State

The death of former Chief Justice Philip Neequaye Archer has created a vacuum for a position of a retired Chief Justice on the Council of State. This is because the only other living former Chief Justice, Justice Azu Crabbe, is also ill and not strong enough to be on the Council, an official of the Judicial Service told the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday.

The Constitution stipulates that there should be a former Chief Justice on the Council of State. "If Justice Archer had been alive, he could have been on the Council of State," Mr Yaw Amoah-Owusu, Personnel Manager of the Judicial Service, told the Ghana News Agency.

Mr Amoah-Owusu said nine out of the 10 Chief Justices Ghana had ever had since independence were dead. Former Chief Justice Archer, 77, died in Accra on 10 May after being hospitalised at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital for about one month. Sheba Elizabeth, his widow, five sons and two daughters and a number of grandchildren survived him.

Justice Archer was the Chief Justice of Ghana from 1 April 1991 to 22 February 1995. He joined the judiciary as a temporary clerical assistant in 1945 after working in the administration section of the judiciary. In 1948 he passed the Inter BSc (Economics) Parts II & I. He read law and graduated in 1953 with LL B after which he worked in England for a while. In 1956, he passed the Law Society's final examination and was called to the Bar in 1957.

He returned to Ghana on the eve of Ghana's independence and was appointed Assistant Registrar General. He was promoted Judicial Secretary in March 1964. In April 1964, he was promoted as a High Court Judge and later an Appeal Court Judge in October 1969.

In September 1980, he was promoted to the Supreme Court. He went on voluntary retirement in September 1983, but was named the Chief Justice in 1991. Funeral arrangements would be announced later.