THE REPUBLIC vrs WILLIAM AHINFUL & 4 ORS

BACKGROUND

1. On the death of Joseph Ahinful, the Applicants/Appellants (hereafter Appellants) applied for, and were granted letters of administration to administer his intestate estate. Under their bid to administer the estate of late Joseph Ahinful, the Appellants wrote a letter (Exhibit F) to tenants of one of the properties of the estate, that is, property No. SN3 SokobanKumasi, for a meeting to discuss issues relating to their tenancies. When the 1st and 2nd Respondents/Respondents (hereafter Respondents) were notified of the letter of invitation, they instructed their lawyer, being the 3rd Respondent, to write a letter (Exhibit H) to the Appellants, indicating that they (Appellants) should deal with them as the landlords to the said tenants. It is the case of the Appellants that the letter written by the Respondents sought to impede their authority to administer the subject house and amounted to an interference in the administration of justice, leading to the Appellants’ ill-fated application for contempt against the Respondents.
2. The case of the 1st and 2nd Respondents is that their tenants in the subject house brought to them a letter (Exhibit F) which had requested them to meet the Appellants’ lawyer to discuss tenancy issues. The aforementioned Respondents contacted their lawyer, the 3rd Respondent, over the issue. They instructed him to respond to the letter of the Appellants, and to request them to deal with them(1st and 2nd Respondents) instead of the tenants, since the subject property forms part of their family property and does not form part of the estate of the late Joseph Ahinful. They further instructed the 3rd Respondent to inform the Appellants that they had instructed him to institute an action against the Appellants for matters concerning ownership of the subject property to be judicially determined. The Respondents claim to have mounted the said action on 28 October 2022. A few days later, that is, on 2 November 2022, the Appellants applied to the High Court, Kumasi, seeking to convict them for contempt of court.

JUDGMENT OF THE HIGH COURT

1. At the court below, the Appellants contended that the letter written by the 3rd Respondent on behalf of the 1st and 2nd Respondents amounted to a wilful act aimed at bringing the administration of justice into disrepute. The 3rd Respondent’s defence was that he wrote the letter in the performance of his professional duties as a solicitor and could not be held accountab