GYEABOUR II AND OTHERS v. ABABIO
July 31, 1991
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
- ADJABENG JJA
- AMUAH
- FRANCOIS JSC
Areas of Law
- Property and Real Estate Law
- Civil Procedure
- Evidence Law
- Tort Law
July 31, 1991
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
This appeal arose from a long-running dispute between the Kaase stool and the Golden Stool over control of Kaase lands and the status of Nana Yaw Okyere as Kaasehene. Destooled by the Kumasi Traditional Council in 1968, Okyere successfully challenged that removal; the National House of Chiefs, in 1981, restored him and restrained Nana Owusu Dormie II from dealing with Kaase stool lands. Despite orders and a High Court writ of delivery returning the stool palace and land plans, the Asantehene (sixth appellant) formed a committee to manage Kaase lands and continued confirming leases. The appellate court, per Francois JSC, treated the National House of Chiefs’ restoration as res judicata, condemned post-1981 alienations as void, and found Kaase lands outside the statutory Kumasi Town Boundaries. Recognizing evidence and revenue-sharing complexities, the court dismissed the appeal and amended the relief, substituting possessory title for absolute title in favor of the respondent.
JUDGMENT OF FRANCOIS JSC
The respondent was however not idle. He set processes afoot to establish the unjustness of the usurpation of his rights to the Kaase stool and, after initial reverses, finally succeeded in achieving a full restoration of his entitlements. This was by a judgment of the National House of Chiefs of 6 May 1981. That judgment declared in unequivocal terms that the destoolment of the respondent was illegal. His restoration was tantamount to his never having vacated the stool or relinquished any rights thereto.
The significance of this decision is that notionally the respondent never left office. Consequently, any one who assumed the mantle of chief during those thirteen years had usurped the respondent's stool. But more importantly, the customary act of fealty which had been performed by the respondent on his enstoolment previously, retained its full force and effect.
The decision of the National House of Chiefs was not appealed against. It is res judicata for all time on all the issues it dealt with. Pausing for a moment, any insistence that the respondent should renew his allegiance to the Golden Stool by swearing a fresh traditional oath because of the lapse of time he was off the Kaase stool, can therefore have no legal warrant.
The National House of Chiefs also restored to the respondent all the stool properties attached to the Kaase stool. During the contest to regain his rights, the Kumasi Traditional Council, with the sixth appellant as its president, took over the Kaase stool properties to protect and oversee their proper utilisation in the interim. However, after the respondent's status had been determined by a properly constituted tribunal and he had secured full rehabilitation as chief of Kaase, "interim" seems to have been redefined to mean "perpetual."
It was the resistance by the Kumasi Traditional Council to restore to its proper owner, i.e. the respondent, the Kaase stool properties that provoked the action in the High Court, Kumasi. Before then, the recalcitrance of the traditional council had been demonstrated in its defiance of two orders emanating from the Regional and the National Houses of Chiefs; the last on 17 April 1985.
One may perhaps be allowed the indulgence of expressing astonishment at the contempt demonstrated by the Kumasi Traditional Council to orders emanating from properly and duly constituted tribunals. One wonders how that august body expected its own orders to be obeyed when it betrayed such