WILLIAM KWAME SABLAH v. CECILIA SENU & ANOTHER

HONYENUGA, JA

On the 17th day of April 2018, the High Court, Tema dismissed the Plaintiff’s action with no order as to costs.

Aggrieved by the decision of the High Court, the Plaintiff filed an appeal to this Court on the 6th day of July 2018, based on the following grounds:-

“(1) The judgment is against the weight of evidence.

(2) the Judge erred when he held that the decision in the case of BROWN VRS ANSAH [1992] 2 GLR is no longer good law”.

The reliefs sought from this Court is that:-

(a) The whole judgment be set aside.

(b) The court to declare the Will of the Testatrix invalid and the Probate founded on it be cancelled.

In this appeal, the Plaintiff/Appellant will simply be referred to as the Plaintiff and the Defendants/Respondents as the Defendants.

The facts constituting this appeal are that Beatrice Agbesi (Deceased), who was the mother of the plaintiff and the defendants made a Will but on the 14th September, 2012 she died. On the 8th May 2012, the Will was executed and read after her death. On the 15th August 2013, the said Will was admitted to probate. The defendants were appointed as the Executrices of the Will. The plaintiff claimed that his mother’s Will was not read and interpreted to her in the Tongu language she understood before making her mark and therefore it was invalid and could not confer any interest on the beneficiaries therein. As a result, the plaintiff caused a writ of summons to be issued against the defendants, seeking the following reliefs:-

“(a) A declaration that the purported Will of the Testatrix, Beatrice Agbesi was invalid since there was no attestation that the Will was read and interpreted to her in the language she understood before she made her mark because the Testatrix was illiterate.

(b) An order for the cancellation of the said Will as being invalid.

(c) A further order that if any probate had been taken, the said probate must be deposited at the Court for it to be cancelled”.

In their defence, the defendants averred among others that the said Will was read and interpreted to the deceased in the Tongu dialect a variant of the Ewe language by Promise Dela Ahudzo and the deceased understood the content of the said Will before thumb printing same. They further averred that the Will, dated the 8th May 2012, is valid.

In his reply, the plaintiff pleaded that even if Probate was granted which is denied, that would not make the Will valid. He further pleaded that there was no jurat to ascertain what t