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Longest judicial sentence of the year so far …

  • 28 February 20191 March 2019
  • by Carmel Rickard

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.

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Secularism in Ghana “obviously” encourages state relations with religion, religious identity – supreme court

  • 7 February 20199 February 2019
  • by Carmel Rickard

A major challenge to Ghana’s planned national cathedral, brought on the basis of a challenge to alleged infringements of the country’s “secular” constitution, has just been dismissed by the supreme court. Ghana’s highest court found that secularism in Ghana “obviously” allowed and encouraged recognition and accommodation of religion and religious identity by the state. But this does not necessarily mean criticism is over – plenty of critics say it will be wasteful and an unjustified expense.

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Ghana’s Supreme Court orders chief’s name reinstated

  • 13 December 20185 January 2019
  • by Carmel Rickard

With Ghana’s constitution limiting the role of the courts in certain matters related to traditional leadership, judges are not always sure of when they may intervene to right wrongs. In the case of Nana Abor Yamoah II, and a dispute about his name being removed from the register of chiefs, the Supreme Court has made it clear: there has to be justification for such action, the process has to be fair and involve a hearing, or else the courts would be entitled to impose their “supervisory authority”. 

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