Yonny Kulendi

Emmanuel Yonny Kulendi is a Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana and the first person from the Upper West Region appointed to the court. He was born on 29 November 1963 and comes from Issa; his father was a Second World War veteran and his mother brewed pito in Wa.

His route to the law was unusual. In his fifth year at Wa Secondary School he spent almost two years on remand in Wa prison, an experience he says made him determined to become a lawyer. He finished his O-levels privately, did sixth form at New Juaben Secondary School, studied law at the University of Ghana and was called to the bar in 1994. He later earned a master's in international security from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

He trained at Akufo-Addo, Prempeh and Co. and founded his own firm, Kulendi @ Law. President Akufo-Addo nominated him to the Supreme Court in 2020, and he was sworn in on 26 May 2020, one of a small number of justices appointed straight from the bar. He is married with four children.