She called the bluff of chauvinists to become Ghana’s first female lawyer, judge

 

Many women have had to abandon their dreams because the chauvinists in their lives had other plans for them.

These men will often load and offload pessimism into the lives of these women to the extent that the women will raise the white flag in surrender.

But not Justice Annie Ruth Jiagge (nee Baeta), Ghana’s first female lawyer and first female High Court and Court of Appeal judge.

In pursuit of a high academic calling, she passed the London Matriculation Examination in 1945.

It was at a time the sun was setting on a second World War that unsettled the world. But for the then Miss Baeta, who would later be one of Ghana’s finest brains on the bench, it was the beginning of a relentless struggle to the top.

Files from the ghanamuseum.org note that after clearing the British education system qualification hurdle, her elder brother, Christian, made inquiries to the University of London on her behalf.

With no scholarship to fall on, her mother secured loans for her.

The determined soul got admitted into the prestigious London School of Economics and Political Science in 1946.

It was here that the chauvinist began to demoralise. Her male colleagues from the Gold Coast urged her to abandon her studies, thinking them too difficult for a woman.

“One offered to arrange a position for her at the Paris Academy to study dress design,” ghanamuseum.org recalls.

She called their bluff. She told them she would return to the Gold Coast if she didn’t pass her first examination.

She passed. With nothing to fall on to persuade her, the pessimistic men never bothered her again.

Annie received her LLB in 1949 and was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1950.

Not one to be lured by the beauty of Britain, she returned to the Gold Coast the very year she qualified as a lawyer to practice as a barrister.

Marriage called on January 10, 1953. It was a call that forced her to abandon the bar for the bench—as she became a magistrate in that year.

After eight years on the bench as a Magistrate, the Nkrumah government in 1961 appointed her as a High Court judge – the first woman in the Commonwealth to achieve such a feat.

From 1961 to 1976 she was a council member of the University of Ghana. In 1962 she was appointed to represent Ghana on the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

In the year Ghana was returning to multiparty democracy after the 1966 coup that turfed out Nkrumah as Ghana’s President, she was named the first female Court of Appeal judge. The court was the highest in Ghana at the time.

Justice Jiagge was awarded the Grand Medal of Ghana and the Gimbles International Award for Humanitarian Works in 1969.

She was also awarded an honorary law degree from the University of Ghana in 1974.

The erudite legal mind was born on October 7, 1918, in Lomé in a country then known as French Togoland.

The daughter of teachers—Henrietta Baëta and Presbyterian minister, Robert Domingo Baëta— she was one of eight children.

Her older brother, Christian Baëta, will later follow their parents’ career path and become an academic and Presbyterian minister, who was elected the Synod Clerk of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast from 1945 to 1949.

Rev Baeta, records suggest was instrumental in the establishment of the University of Ghana, Legon in 1948.

Early days 

Not much is known about the reason but while their parents were in Togo, they wanted Annie to have an English education.

The lot fell on her maternal grandmother who lived at the coastal town of Keta (then in British Togoland). Annie went to live with her.

After achieving a distinction in the standard VII examinations, she proceeded to Achimota College to train as a teacher.

It was at a time the Prince of Wales College (now Achimota School) was making waves in the colony.  Annie was sent there and she earned her teacher’s certificate in 1937.

After throwing her pep and punch in the classroom for three years, she became the Headmistress and Schoolteacher at the Evangelical Presbyterian Girls School in Keta from 1940 to 1946.

But nature was not kind to the school.  The very year she became headmistress, the ravaging sea devoured buildings of the Evangelical Presbyterian School for Girls. The girls were moved to the Evangelical Presbyterian School for Boys.
The numbers shot up and the school became overcrowded.

Not to be outdone by the problem at hand, Baeta had to wear her thinking cap knowing very well that it would be difficult to find funding for new buildings.

She approached the Evangelical Presbyterian Church Choir and transformed it into a drama group that put on the George F. Rool musical—David, the Shepherd Boy.

The performances were successful and the group was invited to perform in major Gold Coast cities and Togo. Annie was able to raise funds for a new school for the girls that was built by December 1945.

Baeta’s time with the Evangelical Presbyterian Girls School was fulfilling but left her restless. Despite her successes in the teaching profession, Annie decided to become a lawyer. It was time to move on. It was at his time that she wrote the London Matriculation Examination culminating in subsequent events.

Annie also participated in religious and social work during her free time in London. She worked with youth camps organised by the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) and was elected to the Executive Committee of the World YWCA during her final years as a student.

From 1955 to 1960, she was president of the YWCA. She and her husband adopted a child, Rheinhold, in 1959.

In 1962, she was appointed to represent Ghana on the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. She was awarded an honorary law degree from the University of Ghana in 1974.

She was a principal drafter of the Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and a co-founder of the organisation that became Women’s World Banking.

From 1993 until her death, Jiagge served on Ghana’s Council of State. She died on June 12, 1996, in Accra.

In her honour, the Justice Annie Jiagge Memorial Lectures were established by the Ministry of Women and Children in 2009.

Her alma mater, Achimota also named what was formerly known as House 17 after her—the Annie Baëta Jiagge House. This was in recognition of her role as a trailblazer in the legal profession in Ghana.