AKUNOR v. OKAN

JUDGMENT OF AMISSAH J.A.

Madam Atwei Akunor brought this action against Madam Sarah Odua Okan. The plaintiff claimed a piece of land situated at Labadi which she said was given to her as long ago as in 1936 by Nii Ofori Kwei, head of the Dzrase quarter of Labadi. The grant was made according to [p.175] custom. On 12 September 1960, this grant, the plaintiff said, was evidenced in writing by a deed of conveyance. She had been in physical occupation of the land since shortly after the customary grant in 1936 without disturbance until about 1962 when the defendant began to interfere with her enjoyment of it. The plaintiff therefore asked for a declaration of title to the land and the usual order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendant and her agents from disturbing her in her occupation and use of the land in dispute.

Madam Odua Okan, the defendant, of curse resisted the claim. She had got the land by way of a customary grant from no one else than the self same Nii Ofori Kwei in about 1942. Mango trees claimed to have been planted by the plaintiff were, the defendant said, planted not by the plaintiff but by herself, the defendant, and her licensees. Besides, and this turned out to be a crucial point in the case, in about April 1960, after the plaintiff had interfered with the defendant's rights to the land, there was an arbitration before the La Mantse and his principal elders. The award of the arbitrators was in favour of the defendant.

Issues were joined before Abban J. on these rival stories. He found for the defendant. That decision does not please the plaintiff so she has come before us in an effort to prove the learned judge wrong and to vindicate her case. The point most strenuously pressed in this appeal was in respect of the arbitration. I am sure it is appreciated that if that issue is settled against the plaintiff then cadit quaestio.

Learned counsel for the plaintiff argued that the alleged arbitration before the La Mantse and his elders did not conform to the requirements of a valid customary arbitration. Accordingly the trial judge misdirected himself in holding that the alleged arbitration was valid. Reference was made to the requisites of a voluntary arbitration as laid down in the case of Budu II v. Caesar [1959] G.L.R. 410 at p. 412. It will be recalled that in that case Ollennu J. (as he then was) held, as stated in the headnote, that the following essential characteristics distinguished an arbitration from negotiations f