[1992]DLHC701 • February 3, 1992 • High Court
AHEVI vs. AKOTO IV
The plaintiff, a citizen of the Dodome Traditional Area, was accused by a young woman, Esi Bisi, of using juju to disrupt the mortuary and causing deaths within his family. The chief and elders required the plaintiff to respond to these serious allegations. While a co-accused admitted guilt and was sanctioned, the plaintiff denied the accusations and voluntarily underwent a trial by ordeal at Ada Junction, where he was declared innocent. Despite this, Esi Bisi continued to make further accusations, and the defendants later convened a public meeting where they allegedly published defamatory words ostracizing the plaintiff from the community. The plaintiff claimed defamation, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, and sought damages and injunctions.
read moreJUDGMENT OF ACQUAH J. This is an interesting case which deals with beliefs and practices in juju, fetish and trial by ordeal of the people of the Dodome Traditional Area in the Volta Region. One Vincentia Dogoe, a fairly elderly fetish priestess of Dodome Awiasu, died in February 1989. Soon after her death, an eighteen-year old mother of two children called Esi Bisi rushed to the chief and behaving as if possessed by some spirit said that she had something important to tell the chief and his elders, and that the plaintiff and one Ahele Kwamla must be called to listen to her message. When the plaintiff and this Ahele Kwamla came, Esi Bisi said that it was Ahele Kwamla who killed Vincentia Dogoe by juju, and that the plaintiff too was using juju to render ineffective the hospital mortuary where the dead body of Vincentia Dogoe had been deposited, so that the deceased would not have a decent burial. The chief felt that the allegations of Esi Bisi were too serious for his private ...