Achimota School Wins Appeal in Major Land Case at Supreme Court
On 20th May 2020, Achimota School won a major case against Nii Ako Nortei II, Mankralo of Osu and others at the Supreme Court. This was a case in which the School had been trying for many years to get the High Court to set aside an earlier judgment from a suit brought against the Lands Commission by the Mankralo. In 2010, the Mankralo sued the Lands Commission for 172.68 acres of Achimota School land. As a result of no defence from the Lands Commission, the High Court granted the application in rather bizarre circumstances in July 2011. When this came to the attention of Achimota School more than a year later, several legal obstacles made it difficult for the School to assert its ownership rights.
Finally, in January 2016, the School began a serious legal challenge to recover the land, with the full support of the OAA. The application to the High Court was for it to set aside the 2011 High Court judgment awarding the land to the Mankralo, and various other claims. The application was on the grounds that the School had not been party to the suit, and that the Mankralo’s claims were fraudulent. The lawyers for Nii Ako Nortei objected to this application on the grounds that the application was frivolous and argued that the School Board had no capacity to initiate the case.
In July 2016, the High Court made a preliminary ruling admitting the capacity of the School Board to bring the case before it and did not consider the application to be frivolous. Following this ruling, and before the substantive case could be heard, the lawyers for Nii Ako Nortei went to the Court of Appeal to challenge the preliminary ruling of the High Court. The application to the Court of Appeal was unfortunately upheld and the School’s action at the High Court was nullified. When the OAA pledged, after the loss at the Court of Appeal, to use every means legally possible to take the land back, this resulted in a ‘contempt of court’ case brought by the Mankralo against the OAA President, the Headmistress and a number of public servants. The court dismissed the case against the public servants and it ruled that it had no jurisdiction in the case against the OAA President and the Headmistress.
The OAA supported the School to appeal against the ruling of the Court of Appeal at the Supreme Court. The School asked the Supreme Court “to set aside the Court of Appeal’s decision nullifying the Applicant’s action at the trial court, and restore the trial Court’s ruling dated 20th July 2016, which dismissed (Nii Ako Nortei’s) motion to strike out writ of summons and statement of claim and to dismiss suit filed on 30th June 2016.”
Happily, yesterday the Supreme Court agreed in a majority (4-1) decision with the learned High Court judge who had earlier established that the School Board had capacity and that the case was not an abuse of the court system. It is a landmark decision that brings considerable relief to both the School and the OAA. Your money has not been wasted. This is not yet the end of the road, as we still have to go back to the High Court for the substantive case to be heard and determined. What is clear from the judgment, however, is that the Supreme Court was concerned about circumstances leading to the award of the land to Nii Ako Nortei II in the first place, and the actions of some officials of the Lands Commission that made it possible.
The battle continues, but the end is in sight! Office of the OAA President
