AWOONOR WILLIAMS v. GBEDEMAH
December 8, 1969
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- Azu Crabbe
- Apaloo
- Siriboe
- Sowah and Archer JJ.A
Areas of Law
- Constitutional Law
- Administrative Law
- Civil Procedure
December 8, 1969
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
In a Ghana Court of Appeal decision involving the Jiagge Assets Commission, Apaloo J.A. and Azu Crabbe J.A. considered the constitutional and statutory consequences of commission findings and access to judicial review. The National Liberation Council’s Decree No. 72 deemed unlawfully acquired assets confiscated and initially allowed appeals, but Decree 129 repealed that right and Decree 253 barred prerogative writs, shuttering judicial oversight. Apaloo underscored that the Court of Appeal was not sitting as a review court and outlined the limited supervisory jurisdiction that had been legislatively curtailed, while endorsing the Constitutional Commission’s recommendation for legislative appeals from tribunals. Addressing Article 71(2)(b)(ii), Azu Crabbe demonstrated the absurdity of construing "declared" to include commission reports where a later High Court acquittal would leave a disqualification intact. He also explained that repeal does not revive prior rights and emphasized standing limits to challenge decrees such as N.L.C.D. 354.
EXCTRACTS FROM JUDGMENT:
(i) PER Apaloo J.A. “This court is not sitting as a court of review and I do not think it Is open to us to reconsider the evidence before the Jiagge Assets Commission and to pronounce on the reasonableness or correctness of the findings of the Commission.”
(ii) Per Apaloo J.A.: “Although there is no inherent right of appeal from Commissions of enquiry and other quasi-judicial bodies, the superior courts have always had an inherent right to supervise their proceedings and question their conclusions by the prerogative orders of certiorari, mandamus and prohibition. True, it has often been said that these orders ought not to be used as a cloak for appeal, yet their use sometimes achieved the object a formal appeal would have achieved, and are often a substitute, albeit a poor one, for an appeal…
We note that the distinguished members of the Constitutional Commission were not content with recommending the conferment of supervisory jurisdiction on the Supreme Court. They think that a right of appeal to the courts should also be conferred, and they expressed the hope that the first Government that takes office under the new Constitution will lose no time in promulgating legislation to make provision, inter alia, for regulating the setting up of administrative tribunals and other adjudicating bodies and for appeals from these tribunals and other adjudicating authorities to the Superior Court of Judicature. In view of the known limitations of the prerogative orders, we heartily endorse this view. We venture to hope that the strong recommendation made by the Constitutional Commission will be a heeded and that it would be possible by legislation to confer right of appeal to the courts on persons adversely reported upon by a Commission of enquiry, so that there would be even-handed justice for all the people.
(iii) Per Apaloo J.A.: “Paragraph 3 of Decree No. 72 provides that assets found by that commission to be unlawfully acquired shall be deemed by the force of that paragraph to be confiscated to the State. The National Liberation Council or its advisers must have felt that in view of the grave consequences that such findings may entail to the person found against, it provided by paragraph 4 of that Decree a right of appeal to the Supreme Court.
It seems that the National Liberation Council must have changed its mind about this because on 24 January 1976, a decree entitled National Liberation Council (Investigation and Forfeiture of As