Emile Short

Emile Francis Short was the first Commissioner for Human Rights and Administrative Justice in Ghana, leading CHRAJ from its creation in 1993 until 2010. He was born in Cape Coast on 6 February 1943.

His father was a Sierra Leonean lawyer. He went to St Augustine's College, studied law at the University of London and was called to the English bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1966, later taking an LLM at the London School of Economics. He worked as a state attorney in Sierra Leone, then returned to practise in Cape Coast, where he headed Max-Idan Chambers and lectured at the University of Cape Coast.

President Rawlings appointed him commissioner when the Fourth Republic began, and he built CHRAJ into the country's main human rights and anti-corruption watchdog. From 2004 to 2009 he took leave to serve as a judge of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, then returned to CHRAJ and retired in December 2010.