THE REPUBLIC v. LT. SETH ODURO

DR. DATE-BAH, J.S.C. : This is the ruling of the Court on the preliminary objection raised by the respondent to the jurisdiction of this Court in this matter. The received learning in Ghana is that a right of appeal has to be conferred expressly by an enactment and is not to be implied or inferred. More generally and historically in the common law world, it can be said that a right of appeal may be conferred by statute or the common law. However, in Ghana, we know of no right of appeal which has been conferred by common law. It is safe to state that in Ghana the system of appeals is governed by the Constitution and statutory law. It is thus entirely to be expected that the Ghanaian courts have not, except in error, attempted to assume any appellate jurisdiction other than that conferred on them by legislation or the Constitution. As the venerable Ollennu JA (as he then was) said in Kuma v The Republic [1968] GLR 926 at p. 928:

“There is no inherent right of appeal in any one who is dissatisfied with a decision of a court; a right of appeal is a creature of statute, and may only be exercised by the person upon whom a statute specifically confers such a right. For example, a person convicted upon a plea of guilty may be dissatisfied with his conviction, but has no right of appeal, for section 324(3) of Act 30 expressly provides that: “No appeal shall be entertained against conviction by an accused person who has pleaded guilty and has been convicted on his plea.” Therefore the jurisdiction which is conferred upon this court to entertain an appeal may only be exercised in favour of persons upon whom a statute has conferred a right of appeal, and may be exercised in accordance with the procedure laid down for such an appeal.”

Another of our venerable judges, Akufo-Addo CJ, had earlier firmly declared in Nye v Nye [1967] GLR 76 at pp. 82-83 that:

“It must be appreciated that there is no inherent right of appeal in a litigant; nor indeed is there an inherent power in any court to hear appeals. Both the right and the power are creatures of statute, and unless the enactment creating the right of appeal and the power to hear an appeal is explicit, clear and unambiguous in its language, no such right and no such power can ever materialise. When however the right and the power do materialise they are exercisable only within the framework of the conditions imposed for their exercise."

Abban JA, as he then was, articulated a similar position in In Re Yendi Skin