First woman to serve as Speaker in an African Parliament
Joyce Adeline Bamford-Addo was born in March 1937 to an English father and a Ghanaian mother. She was educated at St Mary’s boarding school and OLA boarding school on the Cape Coast. She was called to the Bar in 1961.
She was the Speaker in the Parliament of Ghana from 2009 to 2013, the first woman to be appointed a speaker in Africa and elevating her to the third most important appointment in Ghana. She was a judge in the Supreme Court.
She was called to the Bar in Ghana after working in the UK for a year. She was appointed State Attorney from 1963 and became Chief State Attorney in 1973. She was appointed Director of Public Prosecutions in 1976. She was appointed a Supreme Court Judge from 1994 to 2004.
In 1991 she became the Second Deputy Speaker of Ghana’s Consultative Assembly in order to draft the 1992 constitution. In the 2008 Presidential and Parliamentary election she was elected as the Speaker of the Fourth Parliament of the Fourth Republic of Ghana.