CHARITY AGYEIWAH v. E.M.S., P&T CORPORATION

R U L I N G

MRS. WOOD, C.J.

By this appeal, the plaintiff respondent appellant (appellant) questions the unanimous decision of the Court of Appeal on four main grounds. Aside from the well- known and oft- used general ground: “The judgement is against the weight of evidence”, the two other grounds of appeal, which in any event are all embodied in the omnibus ground are the following:

“The Court of Appeal misdirected itself by failing to consider the evidence of the defendant’s own witness (Maggie DW1) which evidence supported fully the plaintiff’s case.”

The Court of Appeal erred when it held, in the teeth of all the evidence adduced at the trial that the appellant did not post any travellers cheques by EMS but rather posted a document as DW1 wrote “document” on the green tag which was put on the EMS envelope.”

It is the fourth ground of appeal however, which raises important legal issues. It reads:

“The Court of Appeal misdirected itself in law in coming to the conclusion that the trial court had no jurisdiction to declare section 43 (1) of the Post and Telecommunication Decree, 1975 (NRCD 311) void as being inconsistent with the provisions of article 18 (2) of the 1992 Constitution.”

The facts culminating in this instant appeal are not complex. The parties entered into a contract of carriage of a postal parcel. By it, the respondent corporation, agreed to deliver the appellant’s parcel allegedly containing travellers’ cheques to the value of ten thousand pounds (₤10,000) to her principals in the United Kingdom. Although the parcel got to respondents agent in the UK, it was never delivered as agreed under the terms of that simple contract, for it eventually got lost. The appellants successfully sued to recover of the full value of the lost cheques, when the respondents failed to make good the loss. The decision was overturned on appeal on the principal grounds that firstly, by interpreting article 18(2) of the 1992 Constitution, the trial judge exceeded his jurisdiction by straying into the domain of the Supreme Court, and secondly that in any event the principal finding that she did purchase travellers cheques and further that indeed she had those cheques in the parcel was against the weight of evidence.

The well established rule of law is that an appeal is by way of rehearing, and an appellate court is therefore entitled to look at the entire evidence and come to the proper conclusions on both the facts and the law. Consequently, I will like to