ADISI v. CONSTRUCTION & FURNITURE CO. (W.A.) LTD. OF ACCRA

JUDGMENT OF CRABBE J.S.C.

This is an appeal from a refusal of Ollennu J. (as he then was) sitting in the High Court, Accra, to set aside an award of J. S. Manyo-Plange, Esquire (sole arbitrator) dismissing the applicant's claim against the defendants.

The main grounds on which the applicant sought to impugn the award in the High Court were (1) misconduct on the part of the arbitrator and (2) error of law on the face of the award.

The basis of the court's jurisdiction to set aside awards of arbitrators is set out in a statement of Williams J. in Hodgkinson v. Fernie.1 He said:

"The law has for many years been settled, and remains so at this day, that, where a cause or matters in difference are referred to an arbitrator, whether a lawyer or a layman, he is constituted the sole and final judge of all questions both of law and of fact . . . The only exceptions to that rule, are, cases where the award is the result of corruption or fraud, and one other, which, though it is to be regretted, is now, I think, firmly established, viz. where the question of law necessarily arises on the face of the award, or upon some paper accompanying and forming part of the award. Though the propriety of this latter may very well be doubted, I think it may be considered as established."

[p.45]

Other cases in which the principles upon which the court sometimes acts when considering applications to set aside awards is Haigh v. Haigh,2 where Turner L.J. said:

"Then as to the other grounds on which his case is rested, it is to be observed, in the first place, that an arbitrator being a judge selected by the parties, and chosen to decide without appeal, this court has nothing to do with any mere error in judgment on his part. The parties have chosen him to be their judge, and have agreed to abide by his determination; and by that determination, if fairly and properly made, they must be content to be bound; but, on the other hand, arbitrators, like other judges, are bound, where they are not expressly absolved from doing so, to observe in their proceedings the ordinary rules which are laid down for the administration of justice; and this court, when called upon to review their proceedings, is bound to see that those rules have been observed. The difficulty which the court has to encounter in determining a question of this nature is not as to the principles by which its decision ought to be governed; but in determining whether what has been done falls within the range of the ar