AGYARE v. DOTWA
1960
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- KORSAH
- C.J. GRANVILLE SHARP
- AKIWUMI JJ.S.C
Areas of Law
- Probate and Succession
- Civil Procedure
1960
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The case revolves around the estate of Kwame Agyin, wherein the plaintiff, his nephew, sought letters of administration against the objections of the defendant, the head of the family. The primary legal questions addressed the applicability of customary succession laws. The trial judge and the appellate court both found ample evidence that the plaintiff was appropriately appointed by the family as a successor. The appeal was dismissed with costs fixed at £G36.
JUDGMENT OF KORSAH C.J.
Korsah C.J. delivered the judgment of the court. This is an appeal from the judgment of Murphy, J. in a suit, in which the plaintiff who claims to be the nephew and successor of Kwame Agyin, deceased, applied for letters of administration to administer the estate of Kwame Agyin. The defendant who claims to be the head of the family to which the plaintiff belongs, and of which the deceased was a member, entered a caveat. The three main grounds upon which the caveat is based are:
(a) That he, defendant, being the head of the family and the plaintiff a member thereof, the plaintiff could not be appointed a successor to the deceased while the defendant is alive.
(b) That in fact plaintiff had been appointed by the said family to be only caretaker of the deceased estate, and not successor to Kwame Agyin.
(c) That he is a brother of the deceased while plaintiff is a nephew, that a nephew cannot succeed while a brother of the deceased is alive.
Both parties attached genealogical trees of the family to affidavits filed in support of their respective claims, and these exhibits have materially assisted the court in assessing the value of the evidence and the shades of interpretation of the English words "brother" and "nephew" as used by the parties both in their affidavits and in the course of the proceedings.
[p.255]
It is observed from the genealogical trees which agree in material particulars that both plaintiff and defendant have a common ancestress Adjoa Beh who apparently had four daughters and a son or sons, but for all practical purposes the descendants of the sons are not regarded as members of the family because, the parties being Ashantis the matrilineal system is the method by which membership of a family is traced. By this method, descendants of Adjoa Beh are divided into four lines of descent from each of the four daughters. Plaintiff is of the second line, defendant is of the third line and the deceased is of the fourth line. It will therefore be seen that the expression "nephew" and "brother" used by the parties have not the ordinary meaning in English but they are used in the sense in which members of the same family belonging to different lines of descent, may call themselves brothers, sisters or nephews in a local sense.
Sarbah's Fanti Customary Laws (2nd ed.) p. 102 contains a list of persons in the line of succession and goes on to state:
"There are therefore four kinds of successors, viz. Real, Proper, Ordinar