The writ was instituted in this Court somewhere in the year 2011. On 25th June 2018, the Plaintiff filed an application for interim injunction against the Defendants and their workmen.
However, on 18th March 2019, the first Defendant filed an application on notice to strike out the motion for interim injunction.
The grounds of the application are that: a. Counsel for the Plaintiff failed to endorse his solicitors licence number on the motion filed, thereby suggesting that the lawyer had no valid license to practice, contrary to section 8 of the Legal Profession Act.
Until 18th July 2018, the Counsel for the Plaintiff did not have the requisite solicitors’license and could not have filed the instant application on 25th June 2018. Counsel’s license for the year, 2017 issued on 25th September 2017 elapsed on 31st December 2017. b. Prior to the application, nothing had been done in the matter for more than six (6) months, but the Plaintiff failed to serve the Defendants with the 28 days mandatory notice required by the rules of Court.
c. The writ of summons and the statement of claim are fundamentally defective.
On the first ground above, counsel for the Plaintiff argued that he had applied for the solicitors licence for the year 2018 at the time of the application but had not been issued to him.
He therefore submitted that the solicitors licence is valid for one year, hence the previous year’s licence issued on 25th September 2017 had not elapsed at the time he filed the application.
He further submitted that since equity imputes an intention to fulfil an obligation, the Court should dismiss the application in the interest of substantial justice to the parties.
There was no issue about the fact that as at the time the Counsel for the Plaintiff filed the application for interim injunction on behalf of the Plaintiff, he had not been issued with his solicitors licence for the year.
Counsel’s argument that a license is valid for one year is of no moment.
Every license issued in a particular year expires on the 31st December of that year and it does not matter when it was issued in the year.
It is true that the Courts no longer apply the rules of Courts rigidly and do not allow technicalities to suffocate the ends of justice.
In GIHOC v. Hanna Asi [2005-2006] SCGLR 458, Ocran JSC held: “If it be a matter of interpretation then I would prefer an approach that avoids arid technicsm of a sort that suffocates the ends of justice”. See the cases of Obeng
