[2025]DLCA18313 • June 12, 2025 • Court of Appeal
THE REPUBLIC vs. NATIONAL HOUSE OF CHIEFS EX PARTE: NII TACKIE ADAMA LATSE 1 GA MANTSE, ACCRA NII TETTEH ASHONG VI
The Respondent, Nii Tackie Adama Latse II, was validly nominated, vetted, installed, and gazetted as the Ga Mantse, with his name entered on the National Register of Chiefs. Subsequently, the National House of Chiefs (1st Appellant) expunged his name from the Register based on a High Court ruling that prohibited his induction as a representative of the Greater Accra Region at the National House of Chiefs. The Respondent challenged this removal, alleging it was unlawful, arbitrary, and violated his constitutional rights to administrative justice and fair hearing.
read moreJUDGMENT BAAH, JA. INTRODUCTION My lords: 1) Hans Kelsen is a prominent figure in legal philosophy (jurisprudence) due to his work, "Pure Theory of Law," which was published in German in 1960 and translated into English in 1967. Central to his work is the concept of the "Grundnorm”, a fundamental theory that represents the norm from which all legal norms in a legal system derive their validity. The Grundnorm serves as the foundational principle, which Kelsen referred to as the “first principle," from which the entire legal order, including the constitution, statutes, and judicial precedents, derives its legitimacy (sourced from: https://www.lsd.law). In Ghana, the reality of a colonial past, combined with a largely borrowed legal system (common law), the “severance” from the colonial past brought about by (political) independence, and the incident of sovereignty, renders the constitution the basic or fundamental law (Grundnorm) that validates all other legal norms in soci...