Meet Her Ladyship Mabel Maame Agyemang: Ghanaian Chief Justice of two different countries
By Richard Osei Boateng
Published
2 min read
Trained in Ghana and called to the Bar in 1987, she rose through the local bench with steady, understated competence that spoke through outcomes.
Some careers scale by climbing a single ladder. Justice Mabel Maame Agyemang scaled by building bridges between jurisdictions, credibility by credibility, court by court, until her name became synonymous with cross-border judicial leadership.
Trained in Ghana and called to the Bar in 1987, she rose through the local bench with steady, understated competence that spoke through outcomes. She served in courts across Accra, Koforidua, Kumasi, and Tema before her elevation to the High Court. Then came a decisive pivot into the Commonwealth circuit, where a judge is tested in real time, under real pressure.
Her first major international posting was The Gambia, where she served as a High Court judge and quickly gained a reputation for raising the standard of what a trial court could deliver in a small jurisdiction with high public expectations.
From there, she took up judicial work in Swaziland, now Eswatini. A decision on the constitutional right to free primary education became one of the rulings frequently cited when people speak about rights being made practical, not merely promised.
In 2013, she returned to The Gambia, not as a short-term external appointment, but as Chief Justice, becoming the first woman to hold the office. Her tenure, however, collided with the political realities of the time. In early 2014, reports indicated that she was removed from the role by then-President Yahya Jammeh.
A reputation built on competence does not vanish. It shifts and finds new ground.
In February 2020, Turks and Caicos announced her appointment as Chief Justice. Governor Nigel Dakin publicly named her as the incoming head of the judiciary, and she assumed office on April 1, 2020.
She stepped into the role during a period of global disruption and led a clear modernization agenda: system upgrades, improved case management, and a stronger service culture across the courts. Local reporting has credited her tenure with meaningful institutional change, including technology adoption and operational improvements that reduced delays and made access to justice less burdensome.
At the ceremonial opening of the 2026 legal year, she disclosed that she would demit office at the end of March 2026, closing the Turks and Caicos chapter after six years in the top seat.
For a jurist trained in Ghana to serve across Ghana, The Gambia, Eswatini, and Turks and Caicos, and to become Chief Justice in two different countries, is more than career progression. It reflects judicial leadership with reach: portable credibility, institutional strengthening capacity, and a principled independence that travels.
