REPUBLIC v. ACCRA NEW TOWN DISTRICT MAGISTRATE (GRDE I) and another EX PARTE PAPAFIO
December 10, 1969
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- Anterkyi J
Areas of Law
- Administrative Law
- Civil Procedure
December 10, 1969
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
Anterkyi J addressed the validity of a trial court’s order by invoking Lord Pearce’s seminal statement in Anisminic v Foreign Compensation Commission [1969] 1 All E.R. 208. The judgment explains that jurisdictional errors can arise not only from initial defects but also through departures from natural justice, asking wrong questions, considering irrelevant matters, or failing to conduct the inquiry mandated by statute, rendering decisions nullities. Applying that framework, Anterkyi J determined that the order under scrutiny was made without jurisdiction. The superior court therefore restrained the trial court from acting on the impugned order and directed that it be brought up to be quashed, reflecting supervisory remedies of prohibition and certiorari. The ruling reinforces that orders made ultra vires are void ab initio and must be suppressed to maintain lawful adjudication and respect statutory limits on tribunals.
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.