[1992]DLSC1967 • October 20, 1992 • Supreme Court •
AFRANIE II vs. QUARCOO AND ANOTHER
The applicant, Afranie II, was a tenant operating a hotel (Hotel de France) under an oral tenancy agreement with the late Alexander Albert Mensah, who owned the premises. After the lease expired and following the death of Mensah, the executors and trustees of Mensah's estate (respondents) sought possession of the premises under section 17(1)(h) of the Rent Act, 1963 (Act 220), claiming the premises were reasonably required for the business purposes of the estate (AAM'S Hotel). The applicant contested the claim, arguing the executors lacked beneficial interest and thus capacity to seek possession, and that statutory requirements under Act 220 and Rent Regulations were not complied with.
read moreJUDGMENT OF FRANCOIS J.S.C. The review jurisdiction has come to stay and doubts about its legitimacy have now been laid to rest by the Constitution, 1992 of the Fourth Republic. It is accordingly necessary to repeat the parameters for its exercise. However tedious, its schematic place in the judicial process must be frequently analysed and dissected to firmly implant the limits of this jurisdiction. To start with, a review is only legitimate where exceptional circumstances exist which if unredressed would perpetuate a miscarriage of justice; but a review is not another avenue for an appeal. Thus in A/S Norway Cement Export Ltd. v. Addison [1974] 2 G.L.R. 177 at 182, C.A. (full bench) Apaloo J.A. (as he then was) restated the limits of this jurisdiction as follows: “The jurisdiction conferred on the full bench is to review and not to entertain an appeal from the ordinary bench. Indeed an appeal from the ordinary bench to the full bench would only, in effect, mean an appeal from one.....