KISSI v. PEPRAH
1960
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- ADUMUA-BOSSMAN, J
Areas of Law
- Property and Real Estate Law
1960
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The plaintiff claimed the defendant obstructed his future expansion by cultivating forest land reserved for the plaintiff under customary law. The trial and local appeal courts found in favor of the plaintiff after inspections, agreeing that customary law entitled the plaintiff to the reservation. The defendant's appeal was dismissed.
JUDGMENT OF ADUMUA-BOSSMAN J.
(His lordship referred to the evidence and continued).
[p.250]
From the foregoing summary of the evidence of the parties, it will be noted that the plaintiff's complaint against the defendant was that in the first place the said defendant appropriated the piece of forest land in front of his cocoa farm which Kwadjo Pong trespassed on and which he the defendant himself had claimed from Kwadjo Pong for him. That when thereafter he (the plaintiff) had caused some Accra labourers to cultivate the remaining adjoining forest in front of his cocoa farm and planted rice in it and thereby extended his (plaintiff's) cultivation up to the limit of that rice farm, the defendant by his labourer Atta Paning cultivated the forest land immediately in front of his (plaintiff's') cultivation thereby barring or precluding him from further expansion.
The defendant's defence would seem to be summarised in his answers to the court hereinbefore already set out in which he alleged that he commenced his cultivation 200ft from the rice farm in front of plaintiff's cocoa farm, and that the plaintiff's claim was "false in the face of law", i.e. native customary law.
The issue of fact as to how near or far the defendant's cultivation was from the plaintiff's was obviously one to be resolved by an inspection: See Adabla v. Agama and others (6 W. A. C. A. at p. 167) in which the West African Court of Appeal said as follows:—
“The question involved was a boundary dispute which, as everyone with experience of land cases in this country knows, could not be decided satisfactorily without either a plan or a view of the land or both.”
The court accordingly made the necessary inspection. They did not issue a separate inspection report but incorporated their findings in their final judgment and said as follows:—
“We found the defendant's new corn plantation in front of plaintiff's forest land and about 140 feet distance from the farm cultivated by plaintiff's said cocoa labourers.”
The trial court then argued:—
“We therefore found [that if] the defendant knew that the whole area was not for plaintiff the 140 feet area he left in front of plaintiff's farm must not have been reserved by him for plaintiff."
They then concluded:—
“The plaintiff's claim was therefore upheld as a result of our inspection. Judgment is entered for plaintiff to [be entitled to have a] forfeit of defendant's said new farm.”
On the face of it, it was a pure question of cust