ATTAH vs. ANNAN

JUDGMENT OF BAIDOO J. The plaintiff-respondent (hereinafter referred to as the plaintiff married one Adjoa Twumasi, a granddaughter of the defendant under customary law. For some three years they lived together happily and had two issues, one of whom eventually fell ill and was taken to hospital by the plaintiff for treatment. The child unfortunately died the next day and because a priestess has told the plaintiff and his wife that six witches were haunting the sick child, the plaintiff’s wife, suspecting her grandmother to be a witch, went and beat her up. An arbitration subsequently held on the conduct of the wife found as a fact that the said priestess never mentioned the assaulted grandmother’s name nor disclosed the identity of any of the persons she professed to have found to be witches and so the plaintiff’s wife Adjoa Twumasi was pronounced guilty of unwarranted assault. As far as the plaintiff was concerned, there was no trouble or dispute of any sort between him and h...