KWAKU ADDO v. GODFRED AGYEDO BOADI & OTHERS
2019
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
- F. G KORBIEH, JA (PRESIDING)
- M. M. AGYEMANG (MRS.), JA
- M. A. WOOD (MRS.), JA
Areas of Law
- Customary Law
- Succession Law
- Arbitration Law
2019
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
This case involves an appeal against a High Court judgment that upheld the redistribution of a deceased person's estate by a traditional arbitration panel. The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding that the arbitration panel lacked jurisdiction to redistribute the estate. Key issues included the application of customary law in matrilineal succession, the validity of customary arbitration, and the retroactive application of statutory law (PNDCL 111). The court emphasized the importance of jurisdiction in customary arbitration and held that the panel could not apply PNDCL 111 to an estate of a person who died before the law came into effect. The judgment underscores the continued relevance of customary law in matters of succession and arbitration, while also highlighting the limits of traditional authorities' jurisdiction in such matters.
J U D G M E N T
AGYEMANG (MRS.), JA:
This appeal follows the judgment of the High Court, Akim Oda, delivered on 30th of March 2012. The judgment itself follows a rehearing of the suit per an order of this court contained in this court’s judgment dated: 5th March 2004.
The facts of this matter are not complex, and we shall endeavour to make short work of the issues that have given rise to this appeal. These are the matters antecedent to the instant appeal:
The plaintiff\appellant (hereafter referred to alternately as the plaintiff, or the appellant), commenced the suit at the court below against the defendants/respondents (hereafter referred to alternately as the defendants, or the respondents), seeking inter alia, a declaration that the alleged redistribution of the estate of Opanyin Kwaku Boadi (deceased) on 4th August 1999 is null and void; damages for trespass; the refund of Ȼ150,000 by the 4th defendant with interest thereon, and a perpetual injunction restraining the defendants and their privies from interfering with the plaintiff’s ownership, possession and control of properties or any part thereof.
The plaintiff brought suit as the successive customary successor to Opanyin Kwaku Boadi (deceased), having been appointed the direct customary successor to his own mother Akosua Kadewaa, who herself had been customary successor to her brother Kwaku Danso, the direct customary successor of the said Opanyin Kwaku Boadi.
According to the plaintiff, family properties he succeeded to, included a house numbered H/No D194 Nsuase Kade, originally the self-acquired property of Opanyin Kwaku Boadi, as well as a farm at Dadease (which he alleged to be family land) on which the said Opanyin Kwaku Boadi (deceased) had made a farm.
It was the case of the plaintiff that Opanyin Kwaku Boadi, a man of wealth who had put up three houses in his lifetime, and had made the farm at Dadease, distributed his self-acquired properties before his death in 1962. In this regard, the plaintiff alleged that, Opanyin Kwaku Boadi a husband of two wives gifted one house each to his wives: to his wife Abena Donkor who was childless, he gifted his self- acquired house at a place called Twepease, to his wife Akosua Donkor, the mother of his four children (the defendants herein), he gifted a house at Kade, and to his maternal family, he gave house numbered D194 where he dwelt.
It was common cause that Opanyin Kwaku Boadi was an Ashanti man who belonged to the Bretuo Clan and was subj