KRABAH v. KRAKUE

JUDGMENT OF OLLENNU J.S.C.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the High Court, Sekondi, given in favour of the plaintiff.

The claim made by the plaintiff, respondent herein, in the High Court against the defendant, appellant herein, is for accounts of all rents collected from house No. 30/13, 7th Street, Sekondi, and for injunction restraining the defendant from interfering with the plaintiff's right to the said house. The plaintiff brought the action in his capacity as head of and for and on behalf of his family known as the Krakue family.

The defendant appealed from that judgment on the ground that she is not accountable to the plaintiff because by customary law the plaintiff is not the head and not even a member of the Krakue immediate family who are entitled to enjoy the property.

The house in dispute was the self-acquired property of one Jane Krakue; although she died testate as far as other properties are concerned, yet subject to a direction in her will that her sister should manage the property in dispute and apply the rents from one room in the said house for the education of a grandchild of hers, she died intestate as far as this particular property is concerned. In her said will she devised another building of hers to her two daughters, the defendant and one Mrs. Sabina Asmah.

[p.125]

The said Jane Krakue was survived by her mother Anna Krakue, a sister Nana Ewusiwah, two brothers, i.e., the plaintiff and another who has been living in Liberia continuously for over 46 years and is blind, her two daughters, Mrs. Sabina Asmah and the defendant, Anna Krabah, and other close relations. Her mother Anna Krakue was the head of the whole Krakue family. By customary law, her mother, the said Anna Krakue, was her real successor and the head of her immediate family, see Sarbah, Fanti Customary Laws (1897) page 87. That immediate family originating with her said mother, consisted, by customary law, of her mother Anna Krakue, her sister the said Nana Ewusiwah, her brothers, the plaintiff and the one in Liberia, and her two daughters Sabina and the defendant. By customary law the mother, as such head of the family, acting in conjunction with the principal members of both the wider and the immediate family, may appoint a successor to her said daughter. In the absence of the mother or any other head of the family, the successor so appointed would be regarded also as head of the immediate family. See Sarbah, Fanti Customary Laws (1897) pages 86-89 and M