Kwamena Bentsi-Enchill

Kwamena Bentsi-Enchill (1919-1974) was a Ghanaian judge and academic. He was a justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana from 1971 to 1972. He was also a professor of law at the University of Zambia and the University of Ghana. He was a fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Early life Bentsi-Enchill was born on 22 September 1919 to Kofi Bentsi-Enchill, an agent of the United African Company, and Madam Christiana Obu at Saltpond in the Central Region of Ghana. He studied at Achimota College from 1927 to 1941. After leaving Achimota College he joined the Mfantsipim School teaching staff and taught there until 1943 when he left for the United Kingdom to study at Oriel College, Oxford University, there, he read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. Upon graduating in 1947, he returned to the Gold Coast for a brief while before going to London to read law at the Middle Temple. He later resigned from the party to stand for the Saltpond seat as an independent candidate in 1954. He subsequently joined the Ghana Bar Association and served as its secretary from 1958 to 1960. In 1961, he joined the University of Ghana law faculty as a senior lecturer in law but left that same year for the United States to pursue his LL.M. degree at Harvard University and his doctorate in juridical science at the Chicago University. He also pressed for the establishment of the Council of Law Reporting in Zambia which was to be mandated to report decisions of the higher courts of judicature of Zambia and urged the Zambian Ministry of Legal Affairs to prepare an estimate of the country's need for qualified lawyers for the decade 1969 to 1978. He established the Law Practice Institute of Zambia which was to give practical training to lawyers, and served as its first director. On 16 April 1970 he was elected fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. the Commissioner for Stool Lands and Boundaries Settlement, and the Chairman of the Volta River Authority until his untimely death in 1974. At the time of his death, he was working on a book that focused on the problems of Legal integration.

Death and tribute Bentsi-Enchill died on Monday 21 October 1974 at the age of 55 at the 37 Military Hospital, Accra. This was as a result of injuries he had sustained in a motor accident he was involved in on his return from Aburi to Accra on the evening of 14 October 1974.

The then head of state and chairman of the National Redemption Council, Ignatius Kutu Acheampong said he had received the news of his death in great shock. He paid him tribute saying; "by his death, Ghana has lost an eminent scholar and citizen who brought great distinction on himself and his country and who gave good counsel and dedicated service to his nation on many assignments including the; chairmanship of the Stool Lands Boundary Commission and the Volta River Authority.