HIGH COURT, ACCRA
DATE: 11TH APRIL, 1962
BEFORE: OLLENNU, J.
NATURE OF PROCEEDINGS
APPLICATION for an order of prohibition to stop the Accra East Local Court from proceeding with a land cause on the ground that the value of the land is more than £G200.
COUNSEL
E. N. P. Sowah for D. Y. Osei for the defendant-applicant.
Plaintiff in person.
JUDGMENT OF OLLENNU J.
The defendant-applicant seeks an order of prohibition against the Accra East Local Court and the respondent from proceeding with a suit now pending before the said Accra East Local Court in which the respondent is plaintiff and the applicant is defendant. He contends that the local court has no jurisdiction in the suit, a land cause. Before making his application to this court, the defendant had moved the local court to dismiss the said suit for want of jurisdiction, but the local court had dismissed the application, ruling as follows: “The defendant-mover could not prove as to how he arrived at the figure of £G250 as being the value of the land in dispute which he stated he acquired as a gift of £G15. Several other lands of identical dimensions in the area had been adjudicated upon by this local court and this is the first case in which a litigant had raised the question of jurisdiction relative to value. I am satisfied that the value of £G250 placed on the land by the mover is not proved.”
This ruling of the local court magistrate begs the question and is a misdirection.
[p.273] of [1962] 1 GLR 271
The local court is an inferior court, the presumption of law therefore is that it has no jurisdiction in any suits unless it is shown positively that jurisdiction in the particular cause or matter is vested in it by statute. It is otherwise in the case of a superior court; there the presumption of law is that a superior court has jurisdiction over any cause or matter except one expressly shown to have been excluded from its jurisdiction by statute.
The jurisdiction of the local court in land causes is conferred by section 98 of the Courts Act, 1960.1(1) That jurisdiction is strictly limited by section 98 (2) of the Act to: (1) a land cause in which the value of the land does not exceed £G200, and (2) a land cause in which though the value of the land exceeds £G200, the parties expressly consent that the local court should try it. In this case the defendant expressly refused to give his consent to the local court exercising jurisdiction in the cause.
Therefore the only circumstance in which the local court could have jurisdiction to entertain the cause is clear proof that the value of the land in dispute is not above £G200.
Since it is a plaintiff who selects his court, a plaintiff who institutes an action in an inferior court takes upon himself, first and foremost, the onus of proving to the inferior court that his claim is within the jurisdiction given to the inferior court by statute. This is particularly so where the jurisdiction of the inferior court is disputed by the defendant. If the plaintiff fails to produce such proof, the inferior court should decline to exercise jurisdiction in the cause or matter.
The defendant, as shown above, challenged the jurisdiction of the local court, but the plaintiff made no effort to prove that the value of the land is not above £G200. All he had done in this court is to rely upon the ruling made by the local court. The defendant on the other hand produced concrete facts which, at the very least, raised a strong presumption that the plaintiff failed to prove that the local court possessed jurisdiction.
The presumption of law that the local court has no jurisdiction in a land cause is strengthened in this case by the facts deposed to by the defendant-applicant that the land is situate in a developed residential urban area, and is itself a developed land.
In the circumstances the local court has no jurisdiction to entertain the suit. The order for prohibition is granted as prayed; formal order to issue. The applicant will have his costs fixed at 5 guineas.
DECISION
Application granted.
