NANA YIADOM I v. NANA AMANIAMPONG AND OTHERS

The Supreme Court, per Apaloo C.J., struck out an action brought by a woman who initially sued as queenmother of Effiduasi, Ashanti, later amending her capacity to a citizen of the Ashanti Mampong Traditional Area. She sought a declaration that the first defendant, the paramount chief of Mampong, Ashanti, had disqualified himself from continuing as a chief, relying on adverse findings of the Archer Committee of Inquiry concerning his conduct as a director of the Ghana Cocoa Marketing Board and a special tribunal’s confirmation of those findings, including a recommendation that he be disqualified from holding public office. The court held the suit was in substance destoolment proceedings, a chieftaincy matter reserved to traditional authorities and the Regional House of Chiefs under the 1979 Constitution and the Chieftaincy Act. Attempts to invoke the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction for constitutional interpretation and enforcement failed because no genuine interpretive issue was raised and no constitutional breach was shown. The court declined jurisdiction, struck out the action, and awarded costs to the first defendant.