BLEWUDZI AND OTHERS v. DZOTSI AND OTHERS PRACTICE NOTE

JUDGMENT OF SOWAH J.A.

This is yet another appeal from the Circuit Court, Ho, wherein the issue of jurisdiction (or the lack of it) of the native tribunal which had tried cases in respect of the same land now in dispute and had given judgments in 1912 and 1913 was raised by the court suo motu which then held that it had no jurisdiction to hear them and the plaintiffs' claim was dismissed both on facts and law.

It appears from the evidence that the parties descended from a common ancestor Tsirimega. The said ancestor had three children, Atsu, Etse and Doe. The plaintiffs trace their line from Etse, while the defendants hail from the line of Doe. Acolatse was the son of Doe and Ashiade the son of a cousin of Acolatse. The traditional evidence given by the plaintiffs was that while Acolatse and is nephew Ashiade were both engaged in retail business in Togoland, a certain sum of money was deposited with Acolatse in the course of his business by persons from the community in which he lived for the purchase of gunpowder from the then Gold Coast. Acolatse failed to return to Togoland and did not refund or return the deposit. Accordingly the prospective purchasers, in reprisal, seized the goods (consisting of 8 bags of palm kernel) of his nephew Ashiade. Ashiade returned home and remonstrated with his uncle concerning his conduct and informed him of the fate which had befallen him. He demanded compensation for the loss of his wares. His uncle was unable to make good the loss but offered him a gift of the large piece of land which is now in dispute. He accepted it and apparently took possession thereof. The root of title of the plaintiffs is in the gift of Acolatse to Ashiade.

[p.174]

The plaintiffs, after this evidence contended that the parties had twice litigated the issues now before the circuit court and that two decisions had been given in their favour. The judgments were tendered and the plea of estoppel raised as an issue.

For the defendants, the traditional evidence led was only slightly different. They began their genealogical tree from Doe the brother of Etse from whom the plaintiffs trace their ancestry. Doe was said to have had three children, namely Gbeshi (female), Akorlor (male) and Acolatse (male) and the land in dispute was said to have been founded by Akorlor and not Acolatse. By what appears to be a strange coincidence, the evidence shows that Akorlor like his brother Acolatse was childless and that on the death of Akorlor the property de