REPUBLIC v. HIGH COURT ACCRA EXPARTE:- ROSEMARY ASIEDU & OTHERS
2015
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- ATUGUBA JSC (PRESIDING)
- ANSAH JSC
- GBADEGBE JSC
- AKOTO-BAMFO (MRS) JSC
- AKAMBA JSC
Areas of Law
- Civil Procedure
- Criminal Law and Procedure
2015
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The Supreme Court of Ghana, per N. S. Gbadegbe JSC, considered an application for judicial review (certiorari) brought by Eugene Kwaku Quayson and others to challenge orders made by the High Court (Owusu Gyamfi J) in contempt proceedings initiated by Catherine Panyin Quayson. The High Court had imposed contempt sanctions and additionally ordered the applicants’ ejectment and removal of their belongings from a residential property owned by the 1st applicant, against the backdrop of a pending matrimonial cause (Suit No. BDMC 3146/2013) before Merley Wood J. Limiting itself to the jurisdictional question (ground 2), the Supreme Court held that ejectment cannot be ordered within contempt proceedings, which are confined to sanctions such as fine, committal or sequestration. Relying on Halsbury’s Laws and In Re Davies, the Court severed the ultra vires ejectment order but upheld the contempt determination and fine. The application succeeded in part only.
GBADEGBE JSC:
We have before us a notice of motion that seeks an order of judicial review in the nature of certiorari in respect of the order of the High Court presided over by Owusu Gyamfi J that allowed in favor of the interested party an application for attachment for contempt of the bodies of the applicants herein. Before us in these proceedings, several grounds were urged in support of the instant application as follows:
1. That the court below had no jurisdiction to utilize the process of a motion for contempt of court to grant an order of ejection or recovery of possession of the property in question against the applicants herein when the substantive matrimonial cause between the 1st applicant herein and the interested party herein is still pending before another court of co -ordinate jurisdiction.
2. The court below had no power to use the process of contempt of court to make a substantive order of ejection against the applicants herein in respect of the premises owned by the 1st applicant herein.
3. The reliefs of ejection from the premises and an order for the applicants herein to remove all their belongings from the residential property in question sought by the interested party in her application for contempt (which were granted by OwusuGyamfi J) were substantially the same as reliefs 2, 3, and 4 sought by the same interested party in an earlier application for interim relief in the court duly constituted for the hearing of the matrimonial cause presided over by Merley Wood J, and, which had been dismissed. The court thus had no jurisdiction to grant the order of ejection.
4. The court below had no jurisdiction to either prejudice the hearing of the substantive matrimonial cause, viz. Suit No. BDMC 3146/2013 - CATHERINE PANYIN QUAYSON V EUGENE KWAKU QUAYSON currently pending before Merley Wood J or prejudice the rights of the 1st applicant herein to the property in question pending the hearing of the substantive matrimonial cause by another court of coordinate jurisdiction.
5. The proceedings of the court below in the contempt application were void as same were in violation of Article 157 of the Constitution of the Republic.
We have carefully considered the processes before us in the application herein and had regard to the submissions urged on us in open court and have come to the conclusion that of the several grounds raised in support of the application, the only ground of substance is that formulated and numbered as 2, which tou