Mensah v Komfo

This week’s award for the longest sentence in any judgment I have read so far in 2019, goes to the Supreme Court of Ghana, in the civil case of Mensah vs Komfo. The sentence which, read carefully, makes perfect sense, consists of no fewer than 144 words! Here it is:

After patiently scrutinizing the record of appeal before us and attending to the written briefs submitted to us by the parties, we have come to the conclusion that the view of the facts accepted by the two lower courts is sufficiently derived from the admitted evidence and that contrary to the considerable  submissions by the defendant directed at overturning the findings, the plaintiff’s case had greater probative value than that offered by the defendants not only for the very clear reasons provided in the judgment with which we are concerned in these proceedings  but also for reasons such as the failure of the defendant to lead any evidence in support of the assertion contained in paragraph 10 of the statement of defence by which it was averred that members of his family had exercised various overt acts of ownership related to the disputed land.