TISMARK INJA VS TINA DEHEER & ANOR

PROF. MENSA-BONSU (MRS. ) JSC: -1. This case has come to this honourable court on appeal from a judgment of the Court of Appeal dated 4th June 2020. A transaction between two close friends got entangled in the vicissitudes of Ghana’s constitutional history with regrettable results.

As a character in William Shakespeare’s famous Play ‘Hamlet’ counsels his son, “This above all: To thine own self be true And it must follow as the night the day Thou canst not then be false to any man. ”Facts and Background 2. The plaintiff was the owner of House No. 9 2nd Close, Airport Residential Area, Accra(herein referred to as ‘the subject-property’). He acquired the property by Deed of Assignment dated 27th June 1978 from one Emanuel Richard Ofori.

He let his friend and former employee Group Captain Timothy Laing occupy the property, rent-free with his family in 1981. In 1982, he formed a shipping company, Remco Shipping Company, with a foreign investor.

He held 50% shares of the company, and was its Managing Director.

In that capacity, he employed his friend Group Captain Timothy Laing (now deceased), as the General Manager.

3. The company got into some difficulties with the authorities over an alleged shipload of Ghana’s cocoa that was supposed to have disappeared on one of Remco Shipping Company’s ships on the high seas.

The company was forced to fold up in 1986. The plaintiff later fled abroad and remained in exile until the government went out of office in 2001. In 1989, however, he was notified by the Government of Ghana that the subject-property had been confiscated to the state.

4. The Confiscated Assets Committee set up by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council as the Confiscated Assets (Recovery And Disposal) Committee Decree, 1979 (AFRCD 25))to manage and administer confiscated properties, had responsibility for all confiscated assets.

The property must have come under the responsibility of the Confiscated Assets Committee, for in 2002, the Chairman of the Confiscated Assets Committee had a series of meetings with the 1st defendant and her lawyers.

It is unclear what provoked these meetings, following which the Chairman signed a letter titled NOTIFICATION TO QUIT and dated 6th February 2002 asking the 1st defendant to vacate the property and turn in the keys for it to be handed to its original owner.

The 1st defendant ignored the request, contending that she and her children were beneficial owners of the property because her deceased husband, Group