Justice Banks Retires Today

By R Joyclyn Wea
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Liberia, Justice Philip A.Z. Banks, is expected to on today Monday June 18, 2018 retires as one of the Associate Justices of the high court bench in keeping with the constitutional provision provided for age retirement of Justices from the bench.

Associate Justice Philip A. Z. Banks
According to Article 72 (b) of the 1986 Constitution of Liberia, The Chief Justice and the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court and judges of subordinate courts of record shall be retired at the age of seventy.
Justice Banks was nominated, confirmed, and commissioned to the Supreme Court Bench as an Associate Justice in 2010 by former Liberian President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a position he continues to serve with ‘loyalty, dedication and patriotism’.
Recently, sources closed to Justice Banks disclosed that, having reached the retirement age of seventy (70) years, Justice Banks has decided to retire from the Supreme Court bench in keeping with the supreme law (constitution) of Liberia.
The aging Associate Justice has served the bench for over eight years and has reached the age requirement set for justices to retire from the honorable Supreme Court bench.
It can be recalled during the Liberia National Bar Association (LNBA) quarterly assembly months back, Justice Banks promised that upon his retirement from the high court bench, he would be more active and continue to render professional services to the country legal system.
He further emphasized that he would continue to provide legal assistance when needed by ‘indigent parties’ in the country.
Accordingly, Associate Justice Philip Banks is an accomplished and dedicated public servant who has served extensively in the public sector and in several dimensions in the private sector of the country.
He served as a law clerk, of the Supreme Court from 1973 to 1974; a legal counsel at the Ministry of Lands, Mines and Energy from 1974 to 1975 and subsequently as an Associate and Managing Director of the Morgan’s Crimes and Harmon’s Law Firm 1976-1980.