REPUBLIC v. SPECIAL TRIBUNAL; EX PARTE AKOSAH

JUDGMENT OF ANIN J.A.

Anin J.A. delivered the judgment of the court. On 21 February 1980, the appellant filed in the Accra High Court a motion ex parte for leave to apply for an order of certiorari to quash the conviction and sentence of three years' penal labour and order of confiscation of his nineteen vehicles entered and passed against him by the respondent tribunal in its judgment dated 4 February 1980, in a case intituled Republic v. James Clifford Akosah Jnr.

Grounds of Certiorari Application

The grounds of the application were fully set out in the accompanying statement and affidavit verifying the facts relied on. Briefly stated, it was contended that the respondent tribunal acted without jurisdiction and in breach of the rules of natural justice and that its procedure was contrary to the due process of law.

More particularly, it was first submitted that the special tribunal was an inferior tribunal with a limited jurisdiction defined by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (Special Tribunal and Other Matters) Decree, 1979 (A.F.R.C.D. 23). Section 3 (1) (a) of this Decree empowered it:

"to take over and complete the trial of all cases pending before all the special courts immediately before the coming into force of the Constitution of the Third Republic of Ghana in respect of all the offences charged or which could have been charged. . . "

The applicant disclosed that there was no trial of any case involving either himself or his company (Akosah Agencies Co., Ltd.) pending on the stated date, i.e. the eve of 24 September 1979 either before any special court or the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council. However, the respondent tribunal purported to try, convict and sentence him for matters already investigated by the Archer Committee of Inquiry into the Affairs of the Ghana Cocoa Marketing Board, whose findings had already been accepted by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council in a white paper.

With respect to the applicant's cocoa-buying agency and twelve other named buying agencies, paragraph 31 of the said white paper ruled:

“All local agents of foreign purchasers of cocoa resident or operating in or from Ghana are requested to repatriate all their commissions in foreign exchange to Ghana. The Bank of Ghana is hereby directed to take the necessary steps for the repatriation of these foreign earnings. All defaulting local agents will be banned from operating in Ghana in their present business or any other commercial ventures.”

[p.595]