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RULING
By a motion on notice for Joinder filed on 28th November 2022, the Defendant/Applicant (hereafter referred to as the Applicant) supplicates this Honorable Court for an order to join one SAMPSON OWUSU to the suit as the 2nd Defendant.
The Rules of Court relative to applications for Joinder are very explicit and admit of no ambiguity whatsoever. They provide under Order 4 Rule 5(2)(b) of the High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules, 2004 (C.I. 47) as follows:
5. (2) At any stage of proceedings the Court may on such terms as it thinks just either of its own motion or on application.
(b) order any person who ought to have been joined as a party or whose presence before the Court is necessary to ensure that all matters in dispute in the proceedings are effectively and completely determined and adjudicated upon to be added as a party.
Therefore, the Court has power, after a suit has been filed, to join any person who ought to have been joined as a party in the first instance OR to join any person whose presence before the Court is necessary or required to ensure that the entire dispute is “effectively and completely determined and adjudicated upon”.
Consequently, in applications for Joinder, if and only if, a person’s presence before the Court is necessary to ensure that the dispute is effectively and completely determined and adjudicated upon, that person may be added as a party. This position of the law is supported by an impressive array of authorities including:
· Ampratwum Manufacturing Co. Ltd v DIC [2009] SCGLR 692
· Ussher v Darko [1977] 1 GLR 476 C/A
· Bonsu v Bonsu [1971] 2 GLR 242 per Taylor, J (as he then was)
· Coleman v Shang [1959] GLR 390 C/A and
· Howden v Yorkshire Miners’ Association [1903] 1 KB 308
It is the case of the Applicant that the property which is the subject of this suit, is the property of Niiman Divine Healing Temple and was acquired through the Trustees of the Church. The registered document evidencing the ownership of the land by the Niiman Divine Healing Temple is attached to the affidavit in support of the application as Exhibit BA1.
Counsel for the Applicant contends that, the Court of Appeal found in an earlier suit involving the 2nd Respondent and the Applicant herein that title to the land in dispute is indeed vested in the Trustees of the Niiman Divine Healing Temple. Therefore, the ownership of the property as far as the parties herein are concerned, is not in doubt at all.
It is also contended by Couns