Women Chief Justices

Umu Hawa Tejan-Jalloh was appointed and approved by the House of Parliament to act as the first woman Chief Justice for Sierra Leone. Her Lady Justice, Tejan-Jalloh was born in Sierra Leone and attended secondary school at the Harford Secondary School for Girls in Moyamba and the St. Edwards Secondary School in King Tom, Freetown. Justice Umu Hawa Tejan-Jalloh holds a Bachelor of Arts degree (History and Political Science) from Columbia University, New York City, N.Y. USA in 1971. Immediately after her graduation from Columbia University she pursued a career in Law at the College of Law, London, and did her Post Finals at the Council of Legal Education in London. In November 1974, she was called to the Bar of the Honorable Society of Gary's Inn. In 1987, she was sponsored together with other commonwealth students by the British Council to pursue a course at the Institute of Advanced Legal Education, University of London, in International Law, Public Law, Legislative and Treaty Drafting.

She started her career as a State Counsel but would later be promoted to the post of Senior State Counsel and Principal State Counsel after that. She would be appointed as a High Court Judge in 1995. Tejan-Jalloh became a Fellow of the Commonwealth Judicial Institute in Halifax, Canada, in 2000 while serving as a High Court Judge. In 2004 she was promoted to the Appeals Court. In January 2007, her excellence in the judicial bench led her to be approved by the Parliament to become a Supreme Court Judge, one of the very few women in Sierra Leone to do so at that time, thus setting the stage for her eventual appointment as the Chief Justice. Uma Hawa Tejan has always been known to be a very exceptional judge.

During her tenure as a High Court Judge, she gained a reputation for justly applying the law without fear or favor. Stories of her enduring harrowing journeys through risky highways under threats of rebel ambushes to held courts in northern Sierra Leone around the same time showed her commitment to serving the people of her nation in delivering justice. Her work has garnered her numerous awards and recognitions both in her native country as well as internationally. She was made an honorary citizen of Little Rock, the hometown of former American president Bill Clinton. She would then become a Goodwill Ambassador of Arkansas. Tejan-Jalloh was also awarded the Grand Commander of the Order of the Rokel, one of the highest National Honours in Sierra Leone.

Maria do Céu Monteiro was elected President of the Supreme Court of Justice of Guinea-Bissau. She was elected in 2004 after the post had been unoccupied for 2 years and held the position until December 2012. She was awarded a scholarship to Portugal for a law degree from the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra. Later, she entered the Center for Judicial Studies in Lisbon - C.E.J, for a postgraduate degree in Judicial Magistracy. She has a Master's in Legal and Constitutional Sciences, and a second Master's in Constitutional juridical Sciences, and as of 2021, she is finishing up a Ph.D.
She served as a judge in Guinea-Bissau prior to her election as Supreme Court Judge by nine senior judges from 2004-2013. She also served as President of the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African Countries (ECOWAS), a position she held from 2014-2016.

Judge Maria is a woman of many firsts. The first woman magistrate and judge in Guinea Bissau. The first Portuguese-speaking citizen to preside over the ECOWAS Court of Justice. The first and only one woman to join the First Technical Commission for the Review Constitutional in Guinea Bissau; the first woman to preside over the Guinean Magistrates Union; and the first woman to preside over the Guinean Women's Association of Jurists.

Justice Christine Nzeyimana was appointed to become the President of the Constitutional Court of Burundi in 2007. She served in this position until 2013.

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Salifou Fatimata Bazeye is a Nigerien jurist who was the President of the Supreme Court of Niger from 2007 to 2009. She was born in 1951 in Dosso, Niger. She was educated at Ecole Nationale de la Magistrature de Paris in France in 1979. Once she received her degree, she returned to Niger to work as a Magistrate. She worked as a Magistrate until 2005, serving on the different local courts, before moving to the Court of Appeals.

In 2005, she became a member of the Supreme Court. Following her work on the Supreme Court, she was nominated to the Constitutional Court in 2007 and elected President of the Constitutional Court by the members. She served her term from 2007 until 2009, when the President of Niger, Mamadou Tandja, chose to retire the Constitution and dismiss the Constitutional Court. This was done because the court prevented him from serving a third term.

Once Mamadou Tandja was overthrown in a military coup in 2010, Bazeye was named as head of the Constitutional Council, a High Court made for the transition of Niger. On the Constitutional Council, she steered Niger for a democratic transition until she left the court in 2013. Bazeye was chosen as the African of the year in 2011 for her incorruptibility.