A legal claim, even an incontestable one, will not be noticed by the courts unless or until it is properly brought to the notice of the person against whom it is made. This other person may be the defendant, the respondent or an interested party in the case. It is this reason which, perhaps, makes...
Must a Defendant Enter Appearance before Bringing an Application Under Order 11 Rule 18? Once a writ of summons with its accompanying statement of claim is served on a Defendant, the next step is for the Defendant to enter an appearance to the suit either by himself or through an appointed lawyer. The Defendant, after...
Introduction Disputes and in effect litigation, are aspects of life that have been in existence since the days of old. The earliest form of a dispute is seen in the Bible in Genesis Chapter 13 versus 5-8 where a dispute arose between Abram and Lot over who should occupy the land which they found themselves...
On Wednesday 6th May 2020, His Lordship Justice Dennis D. Adjei, Justice of the Court of Appeal of Ghana and Honorific Dean of the GIMPA Faculty of Law, delivered via Zoom, the first edition of the GIMPA Law and Ethics Web Series on the theme: ‘COVID-19, Legal Practice and its Implications for Judicial Decision Making’. This...
1.Introduction It is the dream of every Government for every citizen of that country to have a home or a job. Having a home or a job means that you will either have a residential address or an occupational address. The situation of men being homeless is unfortunately not a new development. Even the Lord...
Introduction The concept of ‘fair trial’ was traditionally associated with criminal proceedings. This article seeks to examine the origin of the concept and how it has been recognized as a fundamental human right in a number of regional and international instruments. The telescope will be thrown at various jurisdictions to see how they have extended...
The Supreme Court in Victoria Annang v Emoho & 4 Ors[1] has held that subject to a few exceptions, a party cannot raise a point of law for the first time on appeal. This case concerned parties to a lease agreement. The Plaintiff, granted a lease to S. Under the agreement, S was supposed to obtain the...
1. Introduction Injunction applications are very common before trial courts. In litigation over land, the Plaintiff often files an injunction application almost at the same time that she files the Writ of Summons and Statement of Claim. The High Court’s jurisdiction to entertain injunction applications pending the final determination of a matter raises is without...
A High Court in Nigeria, Abuja Division, has in the case of Dakolo v Fatoyinbo awarded costs of N1,000,000 against a lawyer for bringing an action out of time. In the words of the High Court, “there is nothing ingenious in not looking at the statute of limitation before bringing this action.” The Claimant alleged that...
The Supreme Court in the recent case of Atuguba & Associates v Scipion Capital (UK) & Anor[1] has given some directions on the drafting of grounds of appeal. The court considered the directions necessary as “it has long been the practice among some legal practitioners to shirk the responsibilities imposed on them to formulate specific...