June 2, 1951
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
DENNISON, J adjudicated a dispute in Cape Coast involving plaintiffs described as domestics/slaves and their issue of Mrs. Nancy Campbell and her daughter Mrs. Patience Williams, both deceased, seeking to share in family property administered by the defendant under Patience Williams’s Will. The defence pleaded that the plaintiffs lacked legal status to maintain the suit and were not entitled to the declaration sought. A prior order by Windsor-Aubrey J. addressed pleadings and party competence. The court found that Nancy Campbell had effected a domicile of choice, becoming a member of the Fanti tribe, but Canon Quartey’s church registry evidence did not prove adoption or blood relationship for the plaintiffs. Reviewing Fanti customary authorities, the court emphasized that slaves/domestics cannot inherit while blood relatives survive and may inherit only in specific circumstances. Because blood relations of Nancy Campbell exist, the action was dismissed with costs.
Judgment:
The first paragraph of the Statement of Claim reads as follows:-
"The plaintiffs are domestics and their issue of Mrs. Nancy Campbell and her daughter Mrs. Patience Williams both deceased late of Cape Coast."
Paragraph 18 of the Statement of Defence states:-
"That the defendart will contend that the plaintiffs have no legal status to maintain the suit herein and therefore are not entitled to the declaration sought for herein."
Counsel suggested that the first point to be determined was whether or not there was any substance in the pleading contained in the said paragraph 18 of the Statement of Defence.
Originally this case came before Windsor-Aubrey J., who is no longer stationed in this Division, and on 26-6-50 in a written Order he ruled, for the reasons therein appearing, that paragraphs 18(b) and (c) of the Statement of Claim should be struck out and paragraph (a) thereof amended by the Court so as to make the defendant a competent party to this suit.
Mr. de Graft Johnson has submitted that the plaintiffs as the domestics, or slaves, and their issue are entitled to share equally in the family property in view of Mrs. Nancy Campbell having died intestate, this being so, he argued, that Patience Williams, by reason of whose Will the present defendant is administering the property claimed, had no right to dispose of this family property by Will.
Mr. Abadoo for the Defendant has confined himself to three main points, namely:- The plaintiffs as the successors of slaves were never members of the late Mrs. Campbell's family, they were certainly not blood members, and that the said Mrs. Campbell never became a member of any Gold Coast tribe or family.
To deal with the last submission first I have no doubt from the facts disclosed on the pleadings that Mrs. Campbell did in law effect a new domicile of choice and so became a member of the Fanti tribe in the Gold Coast.
The agreed facts together with the evidence of Canon Quartey do not prove to me that the late Mrs. Campbell adopted these slaves within the meaning of the term as defined at page 34 of the 2nd Edition of Sarbah's Fanti Laws. The evidence of the Canon also proves to me that the preponderance of evidence is in favour of the proposition that Mrs. Campbell did not treat Ekua Nerba (Sarah Campbell) Mary Campbell or Georgina Campbell three of the plaintiffs as blood relations, had she done so the entries in the Church Registry would, without doubt, have been very different in so far