MONROVIA – President Joseph Nyuma Boakai has nominated Cllr. Boakai N. Kanneh, the current Chairman of the Law Reform Commission (LRC), to serve as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Liberia. The nomination fills the vacancy created by the elevation of Justice Yamie Quiqui Gbeisay to Chief Justice earlier this month.
Cllr. Kanneh, a seasoned lawyer and public servant, brings a broad spectrum of experience to the bench, having served in both government and private legal practice. His past roles include Deputy Minister for Legal Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Commissioner for Naturalization at the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, Public Defender within the judiciary, and legal counsel at Sherman & Sherman and Verdier & Associates.
Kanneh is also the brother of Gbarpolu County Senator Botoe Kanneh, a familial tie that has raised some eyebrows in political circles, though the nominee is widely regarded as a competent legal mind. He has taught law at the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law, instructing students in criminal law, torts, legislative drafting, and procedure. He also holds an LLM (T) from the Maurer School of Law at Indiana University.
A major feature of Kanneh’s public career has been his advocacy for constitutional reform. As head of the LRC, he led efforts to advance rewriting the 1986 Constitution to strengthen reconciliation, governance, and peacebuilding in Liberia. He has proposed the introduction of a new constitutional provision, Article 92(b), to facilitate the rewriting process, arguing that Liberia’s current constitution lacks a framework for comprehensive revision. Kanneh has insisted that a referendum, backed by political will, is necessary to legitimize the process.
“The writing of a new constitution will provide a unique opportunity to advance reconciliation, political dialogue, and peace consolidation,” Kanneh said during a recent radio simulcast. He has also criticized the Legislature’s reliance on joint resolutions to determine electoral district thresholds, urging that population-based decisions be informed by national census data, in accordance with Article 80.
Kanneh’s leadership of the LRC has been instrumental in reviving momentum around constitutional review—a process that began in 2013 through the Constitutional Review Committee (CRC) and has been supported by institutions such as the Governance Commission, UNDP, USAID, and the European Union. The CRC conducted extensive citizen consultations, leading to a number of proposed amendments, including shifting election dates, reducing term limits for elected officials, and redefining citizenship rules to clarify the status of dual nationals.
Many of these proposals remain under legislative consideration, but Kanneh has remained an outspoken champion of their passage, describing constitutional reform as central to Liberia’s democratic consolidation.
His nomination to the Supreme Court now places him in a critical position to shape how these issues may ultimately be interpreted by the country’s highest judicial body. The Senate is expected to conduct confirmation hearings in the coming weeks. If confirmed, Cllr. Kanneh will become the latest Boakai appointee to join the reshaped Supreme Court bench, further signaling the President’s intent to leave a lasting institutional imprint on Liberia’s judiciary.
