JASBIR SINGH RAI, IQBAL SINGH RAI, DALJIT KAUR HANS & SARJIT KAUR RAI V. TARLOCHAN SINGH RAI, JASWANT SINGH RAI, SARBJIT SINGH RAI, RAI PLYWOODS (KENYA) LIMITED & SATJIT SINGH & RAM SINGH (ESTATE OF)

RULING OF OMOLO, JA

I must start this Ruling by pointing out that two conflicting principles, both of great importance to those who seek the decisions of the courts on various issues, are involved in the decision we are called upon to make in the application before us. Those two principles are:-

1. That there ought to and must be an end to litigation; and

2. That justice must be done and be seen to have been done in each case that comes before the courts for determination.

The courts in the Commonwealth have readily recognized that the two principles must somehow be harmonized in each particular litigation in which their application is brought into issue. In TAYLOR and ANOTHER v. LAWRENCE and ANOTHER [2002] 2 ALL E.R. 353, the Lord Chief Justice Woolf, tracing the origins of the two principles, cited the speech of Lord Wilberforce in AMPTHILL PEERAGE CASE [1976] 2 ALL E.R. 411 and there Lord Wilberforce is recorded as saying:-

“English law, and it is safe to say, all comparable systems, p…