CECILIA OWUSU vs DANIEL KWAME ESSEL

On 17 November 2023, the Plaintiff filed a Writ of Summons and Particulars of Claim against the Defendant, claiming the following::

1. Recovery of cash the sum of Two thousand six hundred Ghana cedis only GH¢ 2,600.00

2. Cost.

In the Plaintiff’s case, she states in March 2023, she supplied the defendant with a food supplement totalling an amount of Gh¢2,600.00, and the defendant promised to pay it back the following week. She further asserts that Defendant has failed to do so despite numerous demands. The plaintiff thus prays for the relief she seeks.

Section 10 of the Evidence Act, 1975 (NRCD 323) states the following::

(1) For the purposes of this Decree, the burden of persuasion means

the obligation of a party to establish a requisite degree of belief concerning a fact in the mind of the tribunal of fact or the court.

(1) (2) The burden of persuasion may require a party to raise a reasonable doubt concerning the existence or non-existence of a fact or that he establish the existence or non-existence of a fact by a preponderance of the probabilities or by proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Section 11 of NRCD 323 also states that:

(1) For the purposes of this Decree, the burden of producing evidence means the obligation of a party to introduce sufficient evidence to avoid a ruling against him on the issue

(4) In other circumstances the burden of producing evidence requires a party to produce sufficient evidence so that on all the evidence a reasonable mind could conclude that the existence of the fact was more probable than its non-existence.

Section 12 of NRCD 323 (Proof by a Preponderance of the Probabilities)

(1) Except as otherwise provided by law, the burden of persuasion requires proof by a preponderance of the probabilities.

(2) "Preponderance of the probabilities" means that degree of certainty of belief in the mind of the tribunal of fact or the court by which it is convinced that the existence of a fact is more probable than its non-existence.

Also, in Majolagbe v Larbi & others (1959) GLR 190-195, it was held at page 192 that:

“Proof, in law, is the establishment of fact by proper legal means; in other words, the establishment of an averment by admissible evidence. Where a party makes an averment, and his averment is denied, he is unlikely to be held by the Court to have sufficiently proved that averment by his merely going into the witness-box, and repeating the averment on oath, if he does not adduce that corroborative evidence