REPUBLIC v. KUMASI TRADITIONAL COUNCIL; EX PARTE NANA OPOKU AGYEMAN II

JUDGMENT OF ANIN J.A.

On 28 June 1976 we allowed this appeal from the ruling of Anterkyi J. sitting in the Sunyani High [p.362] Court dated 1 August 1973 and reserved our reasons. We now give these reasons.

The appellant, Nana Opoku Agyeman II, was installed Antoahene on 29 August 1966 after his nomination and election in accordance with customary law. For two years, he reigned peacefully and enjoyed the loyal support of his subjects. Then on 22 May 1968 a group of malcontents led by the Abontendonhene, Kwabena Mensah, preferred seventeen destoolment charges against him. In these certiorari proceedings, Nana Opoku Agyeman complained, inter alia, that the malcontents chose the wrong forum for the hearing and determination of their destoolment charges against him. As he explained in his supporting statements and affidavit of 12 March 1973, the malcontents erred in customary law by addressing their destoolment petition direct to Otumfuo the Asantehene, instead of seeking redress in the first instance from the Antoa kingmakers. He contended that neither Otumfuo the Asantehene nor the Kumasi Traditional Council was competent at customary law to entertain and adjudicate the destoolment charges preferred against him. In his submission, the Kumasi Traditional Council, presided over by the late Otumfuo Asantehene, acted without jurisdiction in hearing and determining those seventeen destoolment charges. He disclosed further that the Kumasi Traditional Council eventually pronounced its decision on 16 February 1970; and dismissed all the seventeen charges as being unsubstantiated, save two (numbers (9) and (12)) which were held to have been proved, even though they were found to be not weighty enough to warrant his destoolment. In the result, the petition of the malcontents was rejected. Since then, no fresh destoolment charges had been preferred against him.

Continuing his narrative, Nana Opoku Agyeman stated in both his supporting statement and affidavit that on 11 January 1973, he and his elders were invited by the present Asantehene to a meeting of the Kumasi Traditional Council held at the Manhyia Palace, where he was informed by the Asantehene (president of the council) that Antoa was in confusion and that there had been a long-standing dispute at Antoa, and he was thereupon given one month to go and consider whether he could come to terms with the supposed malcontents. A month later, to be precise on 12 February 1973, the appellant was allegedly invited t