BENJAMINN AWUKU MARTINSON v. SARAH MARTINSON
2022
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
- DENNIS ADJEI JA PRESIDING
- P. BRIGHT MENSAH JA
- GEORGE KOOMSON JA
Areas of Law
- Family Law
- Civil Procedure
- Property and Real Estate Law
- Evidence Law
2022
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
This Ghana Court of Appeal decision, authored by P. Bright Mensah JA with Dennis Adjei JA and George Koomson JA concurring, arose from a matrimonial property dispute following the parties’ relocation from Uganda to Ghana. The petitioner, a retired Ghana Air Force officer and United Nations World Food Programme international public servant, claimed he funded extensive developments in Uganda (residential complexes and bungalows) and multiple Accra properties, while the respondent, formerly a hotel manager, registered Ugandan properties in her name and collected rents without accounting. The High Court produced two judgments on the same date; applying the slip-rule (Order 16 r 10, CI 47), the Court of Appeal set aside the second as a substantive, impermissible amendment. On property settlement under section 20(1) of Act 367 and constitutional equality principles, the court held the matrimonial home and certain Accra properties were pre-marital and not jointly acquired; it settled all Ugandan properties on the respondent and all Ghana properties on the petitioner, affirmed Ghc80,000 financial provision, dismissed fraud for lack of pleading, and ordered each party to bear own costs.
BRIGHT MENSAH JA:
The instant appeal launched by the petitioner/appellant herein, is against the judgment of the High Court, Accra delivered 24/05/2018, the appellant being dissatisfied with the court’s decision. The petitioner/appellant shall hereinafter be referred to simply as the petitioner whilst the respondent/ respondent shall hereinafter referred simply as the respondent.
My Lords, the chief question in this appeal turns on whether the property settlement by the lower court was fair and equitable.
The petition:
In his petition filed in the lower court 09/12/2013, the petitioner averred that he was a retired Air Force Officer of the Ghana Air Force and a retired International Public Servant having worked for the World Food Programme of the United Nations. He worked in Uganda where he first met the respondent in 1989. They started a relationship that resulted in the petitioner impregnating the respondent who had a child in 1990. The petitioner went ahead to perform the traditional marriage in 1991 and took the respondent to the altar in December 1991 to have a church wedding.
The petitioner averred further that by the nature of his job he did not stay in Uganda for long as he was moved quite often to other places like Kenya and Ethiopia and war zone areas including South Sudan and Afghanistan. He retired from the United Nations in 2000 and relocated to Ghana with the respondent in 2001. According to him, he acquired three (3) building/residential complexes and four (4) bungalow type buildings in Uganda which were in the care of the respondent because she stayed in Uganda with the children of the house all the time. It is his case however that the respondent registered those properties in her sole name and also accumulated much rents/proceeds therefrom, without accounting to him.
He pleaded further that beginning from 2007, their relationship grew sour to the extent that although they both lived under the same roof they were not talking to each other. When all attempts to reconcile them failed he filed this petition on grounds, inter alia, that the marriage has broken down beyond reconciliation, the petitioner stated further. The petitioner sought the following reliefs from the divorce court:
1. That the marriage between the parties contracted and consummated in Kampala, Uganda in December 1991 be dissolved
by the court applying section 31(a) of the Matrimonial Causes Act, 1971 [Act 367];
2. That the respondent be ordered to account for r