2021
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The Supreme Court of Ghana, per a lead opinion by Amadu, JSC, with a concurrence by Pwamang, JSC, granted certiorari to quash an order of the High Court (Probate and Administration Division No. 2) that had struck out the writ of summons by Elizabeth Darko and the counterclaim by the 4th interested party in the matter intituled Elizabeth Darko v Tracy Opoku Darko & Others (PA 520/2020). The dispute arose after Nana Owusu Darkos death: his will appointed executors (the 2nd and 3rd interested parties), but the probate had not been sealed or issued. Elizabeth, formerly married to the deceased, sought to protect her interest based on ancillary orders from their dissolved marriage and filed a caveat and suit seeking revocation and preservation of the estate. The Supreme Court held that Order 66 rules 33(3) and 37(1) cannot require notice to lodge probate when the grant is unissued and not in the executors possession; objections for irregularity must be timely under Order 81 rule 2(2); and the revocation relief was premature under Order 66 rule 29. The High Courts ruling was quashed.
AMADU, JSC:-
(1) My Lords, the application before us invokes the supervisory jurisdiction of this court for an order of certiorari to bring up into this Court for purposes of it being quashed and quashing orders made by the Probate and Administration Division of the High Court Number 2, in the suit numbered PA 520/2020 and intituled Elizabeth Darko Vs. Tracy Opoku Darko & Others. Although on the face of the motion paper, the Applicant states that the prayer for certiorari is targeted at the orders made by the High Court, dated Wednesday the 11th day of November 2020, the Applicant has not specified which orders are sought to be quashed.
(2) This observation is made in view of the prayer set out on the face of the motion paper. It is clearly stated therein that the application for certiorari is prayed for, to quash the "orders" of the High Court. This Court has time without number, pointed out that applications invoking the supervisory jurisdiction of the Court are technical in nature. For this reason, it is important that parties who invoke the jurisdiction of the Court be precise in their applications. It is not sufficient to just throw a general prayer at the Court without being specific as to the nature of the order sought to be quashed especially in this instance that the application seems to suggest on the face of her motion paper that the orders sought to be quashed are several.
(3) To the extent that the orders sought to be quashed being several as suggested in the Applicant's motion paper, the position of the court is that, it may be appropriate to make a distinct application targeted at each of those orders. This is the effect of the decision of this court in the case of Republic Vs. High Court (Commercial Division) Accra Ex-parte Attorney General (NML Capital and Republic of Argentina-Interested Parties) [2013-2014] SCGLR 990. In that case Gbadegbe JSC as reported in page 1030 held and it is reproduced in extenso as follows:-
". . . the opinion that I am about to read relates only to a point of procedure, which in my thinking is of some importance to civil procedural law. It is an extremely short one that is intended for future guidance only. We have recently observed that several applications for judicial review in the nature of certiorari that are filed before us relate not only to a single order, ruling or judgment but to multiple such orders, rulings or judgments.... by the very formulation of rule 61 (1) (b) of C.I 16, the Supreme Cour