Justice George Gelaga King of Sierra Leone has been unanimously re-elected Presiding Judge of the Appeals Chamber, a post which makes him President of the Special Court for a period of an additional one-year term.
Justice George Gelaga King has been President of the Sierra Leone Court of Appeal and of Court of Appeal of the Gambia. He served as Sierra Leone’s Ambassador to France, Spain, Portugal and Switzerland from 1974 to 1978, and was at the same time Sierra Leone’s Permanent Representative to UNESCO. Between 1978 and 1980 he served as Sierra Leone’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
Justice King taught law at the Sierra Leone Law School from 1990 to 2005. He is Chairman of both the Sierra Leone Law Journal and the Gambian National Council for Law Reporting, and was a member of the Sierra Leone Council of Legal Education. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Last month he received Sierra Leone’s highest honour when he was named a Grand Officer of the Republic of Sierra Leone (GORSL). He is a “Distinguished Visiting Professor” of Kingston University in Essex, U.K.
Justice King has been a Judge of the Special Court for Sierra Leone since December 2002.
The Appeals Court Judges also elected Justice Emmanuel Ayoola of Nigeria as Vice-President of the Special Court.
Justice Ayoola has served as Judge of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, President of the Seychelles Court of Appeal, and former Chief Justice of the Gambia. He has been a Vice President of the World Judge’s Association, and won the UN Human Rights Fellowship award in 1996.
He is a graduate of London and Oxford Universities and has edited the Seychelles Law Digest, the Law Reports of the Gambia, and the Nigerian Monthly Law Reports.
Justice Ayoola served as President of the Special Court from 2004 to 2005.
Source: Press and Public Affairs Office
Special Court for Sierra Leone
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