GREAT CAPE COMPANY LTD vs HON ATTORNEY GENERAL & ANOR
2016
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- HIS LORDSHIP, ERIC K. BAFFOUR, ESQ.,
Areas of Law
- Evidence Law
- Constitutional Law
- Civil Procedure
2016
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The court ruled on the admissibility of seven documents in a case management conference. It rejected the first objection based on improper custody, finding that sections 162 and 165 of the Evidence Act did not apply. However, the court upheld the second objection grounded in lawyer-client privilege. The court emphasized the absolute nature of lawyer-client privilege in Ghanaian law, stating that it cannot be weighed against other factors once established. The documents, being legal opinions from State Attorneys to the government, were deemed privileged and therefore inadmissible. This ruling underscores the importance of lawyer-client privilege in Ghanaian legal proceedings, particularly concerning communications between the Attorney General's Department and the government.
At the last adjourned date of 8/3/16 and in the course of the case management conference when the Plaintiff’s counsel sought to tender seven additional documents which were filed on the 15/2/16, the learned Senior State Attorney objected to the admissibility of those documents. All the seven documents are memoranda consisting principally of legal opinions given by State Attorneys ranging from Chief to Assistant States at the Attorney General’s department regarding the present claim of the plaintiff before the court. The objection of learned counsel to the admissibility of the seven documents is a hydra-headed legal objection that needs stating ad seriatim. One learned Senior State Attorney contends that by virtue of section 162 and 165 of the Evidence Act, NRCD 323, the documents being sought to be tendered are not coming from proper custody as they ought to be authenticated from the source from which they emanate. Second, and a much more difficult one, is founded on sections 97, 100, 101, and 102 of the Evidence Act, which is to the effect that the seven documents that Plaintiff seeks to tender are all privileged from disclosure on the basis of lawyer-client privilege as they were given by State Attorneys as lawyers for the State to the head of the Ministry of Justice, and therefore such confidential information ought to be protected to uphold the sanctity of frank and free flow of communication between a lawyer and his client, more so when the Attorney General is the principal legal adviser to the government, its branches, and institutions.
I start first with the first leg of the submission that is rooted under sections 162 and 165 of the Evidence Act. The net effect of the provisions cited by the defendant is to the effect that the seven documents are not original as they are not coming from proper custody. Section 162 states as follows: “A copy of a writing is presumed to be genuine if it purports to be a copy of a writing which is authorized by law to be recorded or filed and has in fact been recorded or filed in an office of a public entity or which is a public record, report, statement, or data compilation if—(a) an original or an original record is in an office of a public entity where items of that nature are regularly kept; and (b) the copy is certified to be correct by the custodian or other person authorized to make the certification, provided that the certification must be authenticated.” The section establishes a presumption of the genuinene