Principle Archive

The rights envisaged in section 5(2) of the Land Use Act are not rights of occupancy but merely rights to use or occupy the land, such…

The Governor's power to revoke a right of occupancy must be exercised for overriding public interest or for public purposes as prescribed by section 28 of…

To rely on traditional history, a party must plead the name of the ancestor who founded the land, the names of those after him to whom…

A party asserting entitlement to ishakole must plead the nature of the ishakole before leading evidence. Ishakole may be in kind (farm produce) or money, or…

A plaintiff who relies on traditional history must plead that history properly and lead evidence on it. The history may succeed on its merits when there…

A ground of appeal complaining of misdirection in law and on the facts does not ipso facto make the ground incompetent. It raises a ground of…

Where a plaintiff and his witness irrefutably challenge the validity of their own claim and thereby destroy it, the trial court has a duty to consider…

A judge's refusal to fix a date for hearing an application or to decline to hear an application duly filed amounts to a deliberate refusal to…

Jurisdiction is the body and soul of every judicial proceeding. Without it, all subsequent proceedings are fruitless, futile, and a nullity. The issue of jurisdiction is…

When a court's jurisdiction is challenged, the court must settle that issue one way or another first before proceeding to hear the case on the merits.

When an objection to jurisdiction is raised, it must be resolved first before proceeding to hear the case on the merits.

It is settled law and mandatory that a court must make a decision and pronounce on every application before it. Failure to do so is a…