KOFI AMOFA KUSI v. AFIA AMANKWA ADARKWAH
2021
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
- A. M. DOMAKYAAREH (MRS) J. A. PRESIDING
- A. B. POKU-ACHEAMPONG, J. A.
- S. K. A. ASIEDU, J. A
Areas of Law
- Family Law
- Civil Procedure
- Property and Real Estate Law
2021
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
This Court of Appeal decision arises from a divorce and financial settlement dispute initiated at the Kumasi High Court between a husband (Petitioner/Appellant) and wife (Respondent) married under the Marriage Ordinance in 2002, with four children. The High Court dissolved the marriage, declined to classify certain pre-marital properties as marital, granted the Apramang matrimonial home to the wife for her use and as accommodation for the children, awarded vehicle GN 902-13 and a school-run vehicle, ordered GH¢200,000 as lump sum financial settlement, and set GH¢2,000 monthly child maintenance with general welfare obligations. On appeal, the husband challenged factual findings and the financial/property orders, and the wife sought a variation to increase maintenance. Applying Act 367 sections 19 and 20, Article 22, and Supreme Court authority (Mensah, Quartson, Fynn, Arthur), the Court of Appeal found no basis to disturb the trial judge’s discretionary decisions, affirmed the orders, but varied the school-run vehicle order as unduly burdensome. The variation request to raise maintenance was refused, and late procedural objections to the petition’s validity were rejected.
J U D G M E N T
POKU-ACHEAMPONG, J.A.:
“Divorce has become less about divorce and more about money. The process by which a divorce is obtained has become increasingly less significant. The parties now wage warfare on the battlefield of finance”
This apt statement by Joseph Jackson, Q. C. accurately describes the circumstances of the instant case. See Jackson’s Matrimonial, Finance and Taxation (London, Butterworths, 1972) as quoted in Prof. W. C. Ekow Daniels’ book “The Law on Family Relations in Ghana” published by Black Mask Limited 2019. Page 329.
In his valedictory judgment in the case of Arthur (No 1) Vrs Arthur (No 1) 2013-2014 1SCGLR 543 at 549 the illustrious Date-Bah JSC (as he then was) quoted the Roman Poet Virgil’s assertion in his Eclogues - “Omnia Vincit Amor”, meaning that love conquers all things. The retired justice of the Supreme Court stated further that “alas the empirical evidence from divorce litigation belies this assertion.”
It is a matter of regret that the empirical evidence from divorce litigation has since increased in huge proportion to rob the above assertion of Virgil of the little truth in it.
The parties in this case started their warfare on the battlefield of finance at a Kumasi High Court.
It is a matter of deep regret that a love relationship that started well and a union that appears to have been blessed financially and with four lovely children should fall apart so dramatically and come to an end.
Facts:
The parties herein that is the Petitioner/Appellant, the husband, and the Respondent/Respondent, the wife, got married on 26th January 2002 under the Marriage Ordinance. They lived at Fawoade near Kumasi and later on moved to live at Apramang-Kumasi. The union was blessed with four children, three girls and one boy, who were at the time the action was instituted by the Petitioner aged as follows:
Akua Serwaah Amofa - 15 years
Akua Dede Amofa - 10 years
Afia Birago Amofa - 6 years
and
Ohene Kofi Amofa - 5 years
The husband Petitioner instituted this action on the basis that the marriage had broken down beyond reconciliation due to the unreasonable behavior of the wife-Respondent. He provided the particulars of the wife’s unreasonable behavour as follows:
a. Constantly disrespecting him the Petitioner on all occasions
b. Keeping a lot of female friends to the extent of bringing some of them to sleep over in their home on the matrimonial bed.
c. Contracting the staff at the workplace of the Petitioner to