KOBINA ANGU v. CUDJOE ATTAH

[Delivered by Sir Arthur Channell.]

This is an appeal from a judgment of a Full Court of the Supreme Court of the Gold Coast Colony in an action in which the present appellant was plaintiff and the present respondent was defendant, reversing a judgment which the appellant had obtained in his favour on a trial before a single Judge of the Supreme Court, sitting as a Divisional Court. The claim of the appellant was made as Manche, or Chief, of Mansu, or Mansuah, for a declaration that he was entitled to tribute from the respondent as holder of certain lands at Bortogyina.

The land law in the Gold Coast Colony is based on native customs. As is the case with all customary law, it has to be proved in the first instance by calling witnesses acquainted with the native customs until the particular customs have, by frequent proof in the Courts, become so notorious that the Courts take judicial notice of them. In the Gold Coast Colony the principal customs as to the tenure of land have now reached the stage at which the Courts recognise them, and the law has become as it were crystallised. There is little statutory law relating to land. There is no land registry. There is an Ordinance (No. I of 1895 ) as to registration, but it only provides for a registry of "instruments," giving priority to those which are duly registered. It has no real bearing on the present case, the only documents referred to, which could be registered, being registered.

It is part of the customary law so recognised that lands are (or were originally) attached to the stools or thrones of Chiefs, and that Chiefs are entitled to tribute from the occupants or users of land attached to these stools. There is some power of alienation by Chiefs which must be exercised in a customary matter with certain consents, so that lands once attached to a stool, may by the exercise of this power have become not so attached and may be free from tribute. There is also a class of lands known as family lands, as to which, however, no question appears to arise in the present case. The right to tribute arises from the ownership of the chief, and it is payable either in money or in produce, and is not defined in amount, but has to be settled somehow by agreement between the parties. It appears to be analogous to the arbitrary rents or exactions which in feudal times were levied .n this country by lords upon their tenants, and which were known as "blackmail," as distinguished from "white rents," which were payabl