PRACTICE NOTE: BLEWUDZI AND OTHERS V. DZOTSI AND OTHERS

SOWAH J.A.: This is yet another appeal from the Circuit Court, Ho, wherein the issue of jurisdiction (or the lack of it) of the native tribunal which had tried cases in respect of the same land now in dispute and had given judgments in 1912 and 1913 was raised by the court suo motu which then held that it had no jurisdiction to hear them and the plaintiffs’ claim was dismissed both on facts and law.

It appears from the evidence that the parties descended from a common ancestor Tsirimega. The said ancestor had three children, Atsu, Etse and Doe. The plaintiffs trace their line from Etse, while the defendants hail from the line of Doe. Acolatse was the son of Doe and Ashiade the son of a cousin of Acolatse. The traditional evidence given by the plaintiffs was that while Acolatse and is nephew Ashiade were both engaged in retail business in Togoland, a certain sum of money was deposited with Acolatse in the course of his business by persons from the community in which he lived for the pur…