YAW BOAKYE (SUBSTITUTED) FOR OPANIN KWADWO ADOM v. OPANIN KWAME MARFO

GBADEGBE JSC:

My Lords, the question for our determination in these proceedings is whether the decision of the Court of Appeal that reversed the judgment of the trial High Court in the mater herein was right having regard to the evidence contained in the record of proceedings before us? In my view since the proceedings before the Court of Appeal was in the nature of a rehearing, the court was entitled after hearing the parties and considering the evidence contained in the record of proceedings to give in the words of rule 32 of the Court of Appeal Rules, CI 19 “a judgment and make an order that ought to have been made, and to make a further or any other order as the case may require including an order as to costs”. The jurisdiction so conferred on the court under rule 32, however, must be exercised only in cases where it comes to the view after considering the facts that the decision appealed from is unreasonable or perverse. See: FOSUA v ADU- POKU MENSAH [2009] SCGLR 310. In such a situation, the court and indeed any appellate court may interfere with the findings of fact of the trial court which did not properly evaluate the evidence or made wrong inferences from the accepted evidence.

Turning to the appeal herein, the case of the appellant in the High Court was as averred to in the statement of claim filed in the matter herein on 22 October 1998 that sometime after he had acquired Plot No Block 16, Old Amakom Kumasi and built a house thereon he fell into debt and pledged his property to the family of the late Kwabena Gyasi for the sum of five hundred pounds. According to the pleadings filed on his behalf the property was to be redeemed after it had been in possession of the defendant for some time and that although the property has been in possession of the family for over 20 years, they have in the words employed in paragraph 8 of the statement of claim “failed to redeem the pledged property to him.” The writ of summons herein was therefore taken out by the appellant against the respondent as successor to Kwabena Gyasi for a declaration of title to the disputed property, recovery of possession and perpetual injunction.

Upon service of the writ and the accompanying statement of claim on the respondent, he submitted himself to the jurisdiction of the trial court and filed a statement of defence by which he denied the allegation of a pledge of the disputed property and asserted a purchase by Yaw Barima alias Yaw Gyasi from the appellant for the sum o