REPUBLIC v. HIGH COURT, ACCRA & OTHERS

DOTSE JSC: -

The Supreme Court, in the oft quoted locus classicus case on the scope of the review jurisdiction of this court, held in the case of Quartey v Central Services Co. Ltd [1996-97] SCGLR 398 as follows:-

“A review of a judgment is a special jurisdiction and not an appellate jurisdiction, conferred on the court; and the court would exercise that special jurisdiction in favour of an applicant only in exceptional circumstances. This implies that such an applicant should satisfy the court that there has been some fundamental or basic error which the court inadvertently committed in the course of considering its judgment, and which fundamental error has thereby resulted in a gross miscarriage of justice. These principles have been stated over and over again by this court. Consequently, a losing party is not entitled to use the review process to re-argue his appeal which had been dismissed or use the process to prevail upon the court to have another or second look at his case.” Emphasis

In a well researched and written statement of case filed by learned counsel for the Applicant, Harold Atuguba in support of this review application, learned counsel stated explicitly in the concluding stages of the statement of case as follows:

“Rule 54 (a) of the Supreme Court Rules gives the Honourable Court power to review its decision in “exceptional circumstances”. Emphasis

Again, the Supreme Court in a bid to stem the tide in the growing number of review applications that were flooding the apex court, came out with what it called a roadmap in the case of Arthur (No.2) v Arthur (No.2) [2013 – 2014] 569, at pages 579 to 580, where the court stated in clear terms as follows:-

“We are therefore constrained to send a note of caution to all those who apply for the review jurisdiction of this court under Rule 54 (a) of the Supreme Court Rules, 1996 (CI 16), to be mindful of the following we set out as a road map. It is neither an exhaustive list nor one that is cast in iron such that it cannot be varied depending upon the circumstances of each case.

i. In the first place, it must be established that the review application filed within time limits specified in rule 55 of C. I. 16, i.e. it shall be filed at the Registry of the Supreme Court not later than one month from the date of the decision sought to be reviewed;

ii. That there exists exceptional circumstances to warrant a consideration of the application;

iii. That these exceptional circumstances have led