REPUBLIC v. GHANA PORTS AUTHORITY AND OTHERS; EX PARTE OTOO AND ANOTHER

JUDGMENT OF ESSIEM J. A.

This is an appeal from the ruling of Lutterodt J. (as she then was) by which she dismissed an application by the appellants to attach the respondents for contempt of court.

The facts may be stated briefly: The appellants' father was for some time an employee of the first respondent-company and the second, third, fourth and fifth respondents were at the material time employees of the first respondent-company.

While in the employment of the first respondent, the appellants' father was housed in house No.1A/100, Brenya Street, Community No.1, Tema by the first respondent-company. The available evidence shows that the said house was rented from the Tema Development Corporation by the respondents for their employees. The appellants' father was therefore accommodated in the said house when he was employed by the first respondent. There is evidence in the affidavits that the appellants' father retired from the services of the respondent-company on or about 11 November 1973. The appellants however contend that their late father bought the house from the Tema Development Corporation before his death.

The respondents instituted an action against him for “(a) an order of ejectment ... in respect of house No. 1A/100, Brenya Street, Tema; and (b) damages for use and occupation of the said house from 11 November 1973 to the date of judgment.”

[p.536]

The appellants' father, counterclaimed for:

"(a) Declaration of title to house No. 1A/100, Brenya Street, Tema.

(b) Order releasing the title deeds of house No.1A/100, Brenya Street, Tema to the defendant.

(c) Perpetual injunction to restrain the plaintiff by itself, its servants, agents and all others claiming through the corporation from interfering with the defendant's use and enjoyment of the premises.”

It was while this suit was pending that the appellants' father died. It is also clearly established from the record that the appellants were substituted as defendants in place of their late father on their own application to the court. The application for substitution was filed on 2 November 1987 and it was granted on 16 November 1987 by the High Court, Accra.

In the meantime on 30 October 1987, and before they applied to be substituted, the appellants were forcibly ejected from the premises they had occupied with their father, which is the subject matter in dispute before the court.

There is thus no dispute that at the time they were ejected from the premises, the appellants were n