REPUBLIC v. ACCRA NEW TOWN DISTRICT MAGISTRATE (GRDE I) and another EX PARTE PAPAFIO

EXTRACT FROM JUDGMENT:

“’Lack of jurisdiction may arise in various ways. There may be an absence of those formalities or things which are conditions precedent to the tribunal having any jurisdiction to embark on an enquiry. Or the tribunal may at the end make an order that it has no jurisdiction to make. Or in the intervening stage while engaged on a proper enquiry, the tribunal may depart from the rules of natural justice; or it may ask itself the wrong questions; or it may take into account matters which it was not directed to take into account. Thereby it would step outside its jurisdiction. It may turn its enquiry turn its enquiry into something not directed by Parliament and fail to make the enquiry which Parliament did direct. Any of these things would cause its purported decision to be a nullity.’ Per Lord Pearce in Anisminic v Foreign Compensation Commission [1969] 1 All E.R. 208 at p. 233.

The order in question was made without jurisdiction, and the trial court is accordingly hereby prohibited from acting on it. It should accordingly be brought up to be quashed.