ADABLA AND ANOTHER vs. KISSEH AND ANOTHER

On 22 February 1971 we dismissed this appeal and we now give our reasons for such dismissal. The appeal was brought by the defendants against the decision of the High Court, Ho, granting the plaintiffs the relief of partition whereby the land commonly owned by the parties was ordered to be divided between them. The central issue in the appeal turned on the validity of this order of division. I find it unnecessary to repeat the full facts which formed the background to the dispute, as these have already been set out in the judgment appealed from. The dispute, no doubt, appeared to have been a longstanding one, and not of recent origin. The land in question is a village settlement occupied by the families of two tribal groups alongside the banks of the Volta river, and has ever been in their joint ownership and occupation. It seems some generations past the ancestors of both tribes migrated and settled on separate portions of this territory. Their manner of occupation was such tha...