LARYEA MARTEYE & ANOTHER v. ABUBAKARI MOHAMMED & ANOTHER

In this Ghana Court of Appeal decision authored by Dennis Adjei, J.A., the Court addressed an appeal by two plaintiffs seeking to set aside a prior High Court judgment on grounds of fraud relating to a disputed parcel of land in Teshie Nungua, Accra. The earlier suit, Abubakari Mohammed v. Jamil Iddriss (FAL/800/2015), involved Abubakari Mohammed, who had leased the land from the Martey Tsuru Family, and he had obtained judgment and recovered possession. The present plaintiffs, claiming ownership interests, sued both Abubakari Mohammed and Jamil Iddriss, adding reliefs for title, invalidation of the lease, and injunction. On appeal, they argued the High Court’s decision was against the weight of evidence and that the trial judge erred in finding no fraud. The Court of Appeal held that in proceedings to set aside a judgment for fraud, fraud alone must be the issue; the plaintiffs’ additional substantive reliefs were incompetent. The Court further found that the pleaded particulars were essentially non-joinder complaints, which do not amount to fraud, and that fraud must be distinctly pleaded and proven beyond a reasonable doubt under Section 13 of the Evidence Act. The appeal was dismissed.