2021
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The Supreme Court of Ghana majority, per Justice Pwamang, allowed the appeal by the Osiem-based trustees of The Saviour Church of Ghana led by Abraham Adusei and set aside the High Court (2018) and split Court of Appeal (2020) judgments that had favored the 2007 corporate entity Saviour Church of Ghana associated with the Elias Asirifi Asante faction. The Court held that prior judgments (High Court 2003 and Court of Appeal 2004) conclusively recognized the Adusei faction as successor to the original church founded by Opanin Samuel Brako, and that the 2010 contempt ruling against the Elias factions leaders reinforced this. It further ruled that a 6 December 2012 Court of Appeal order (Dordzie JA) setting aside a writ retroactively invalidated a later High Court judgment (Ofori Atta J) for lack of jurisdiction. Applying res judicata and equitable principles, the Court found the 2007 incorporation was a vehicle to supplant existing rights, ordered the Registrar of Companies to cancel the certificate, and granted a perpetual injunction, while encouraging reconciliation at the defendants discretion.
MAJORITY OPINION
PWAMANG JSC:-
INTRODUCTION
My Lords, this case is not as complicated as it has been presented in the statements of case of the parties since key aspects of the matters in contention have over the past twenty years been settled by final decisions of the courts below us. However, this appeal appears to me to be the first time the facts and applicable law concerning Saviour Church of Ghana will be considered by the apex court. Because the litigation concerning the church seems to be recurring, the judgment we give in this case ought to clarify and settle all issues in dispute between the parties and be devoid of ambiguity. This way, we shall hope to stem any future attempts to re-open this matter on a claim that an aspect of the differences between the parties was not resolved, as is being urged on us in this case.
BACKGROUND OF THE CASE
My Lords, in the course of this judgment, it shall shortly become plain that when everything in this suit is stripped to the bare bones, it is a dispute about which of the two factions of Saviour Church of Ghana is the successor to the Saviour Church of Ghana founded by the late Opanyin Samuel Brako, who was succeeded by Opanyin Isaac Asirifi alias “Dadeako,” with headquarters at Osiem in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Is it the Elias Asirifi Asante Faction represented here by the plaintiff/respondent/respondent, or the Abraham Kweku Adusei Faction represented by the defendants/appellants/appellants. For that reason, I shall refer to the parties as “the Elias Asirifi Faction” or “the plaintiff” and “the Abraham Adusei Faction” or “the defendants”. The two Factions emerged following the death of Opanyin Isaac Asirifi in 1997 due to causes that are not relevant for our purposes here, leading to series of court cases between them. The cases were consolidated and heard by Gbadegbe J (as he then was) who identified the main bone of contention between the factions to be which faction was the authentic successor to the original church. In the final judgment of the High Court, Gbadegbe JA,( who had by then been elevated to the Court of Appeal bench and was sitting as an Additional High Court judge)dated 10th June, 2003, which was affirmed by the Court of Appeal in their judgment dated 26th February, 2004, it was decided that it is the Abraham Adusei Faction that is the successor to the original church and that the Elias Asirifi Faction had broken off from the main church and were conducting themselves as a separat