YEGBOR PER SAMLAFU IV v. DORGAH PER ADJORBLE II

JUDGMENT OF SIRIBOE J.

When this appeal came up before the court on the 29th November, 1962, counsel for the defendant (respondent herein) raised a preliminary objection that the appeal was not properly before the court. He referred to the notice of intention to appeal filed on the 28th February, 1958, against the decision given on the 26th day of the same month, and said that notice of intention to appeal was not signed by the proper person entitled to do so, as required by the provisions of section 22 of the Native Courts Ordinance,1 and regulation 118 (1) and (2) of the Native Courts Procedure Regulations2 made under that Ordinance, which applied to the appeal.

Section 22 of the Native Courts Ordinance provides as follows:

“No legal practitioner or attorney may appear or act for or assist any party or act in any cause or matter before a Native Court or in any cause or matter removed from a Native Court by appeal or otherwise, except in the case of such said removal, by the leave of the Court and subject to the provisions of the Legal Practitioners Ordinance relating to such appearance; but a Native Court may in its discretion permit the husband or wife, or guardian, or any servant, or the master or any inmate of the household of any party who shall give satisfactory proof that he or she has authority in that behalf, or a relative of a person administering the estate of a person who was subject to the jurisdiction of a Native Court, to appear for such party.”

Regulation 118 (1) also provides as follows:

“Any person wishing to appeal from an order or decision of a Native Court shall file in the Native Court and lodge in the Appeal Court a Notice of Intention to Appeal and such Notices shall be filed and lodged within one month of the date of the order or decision appealed against.”

The appropriate form is Form 20 of the Schedule which states:

“To the Registrar of the (Native) Court.

TAKE NOTICE that I, being a party to the above cause was decided by the ¼……… Native Court on the ¼. day of .¼ 19 …… and being aggrieved by the said decision do intend to appeal to the ¼ Court.

Dated at ...........................¼ this ...¼ day of ...............¼ 19¼¼

Appellant's Signature.”

The proper person, counsel argued, was Samlafu IV whom the real plaintiff (appellant herein) authorised to represent him in the proceedings before the native court. E. K. Torkla, who signed for Asafohene Samlafu IV, had no authority to do so; and as such, there was no notice of