OKYERE AND ANOTHER vs. THE REPUBLIC [2001]DLSC1216

Date	2001-11-28
Suit No.
Citation No.	[2001]DLSC1216

BAMFORD-ADDO JSC

AMPIAH JSC

ADJABENG JSC

ACQUAH JSC

ADZOE JSC

ASARE-BEDIAKO FOR THE APPELLANTS.

ANTHONY GYAMBIBY (PRINCIPAL STATE ATTORNEY) FOR THE RESPONDENT.

[2001]DLSC1216
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													<main id="main" class="content" style="min-height: 60rem" >OKYERE AND
ANOTHER<o:p></o:p>vs.<o:p></o:p>THE REPUBLIC<o:p></o:p>[SUPREME COURT,
ACCRA]<o:p></o:p>[2001-2002] 1
GLR 423<o:p></o:p><div style="mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.5pt;
padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in">

<p class="MsoNormal" align="right" style="margin-bottom:5.0pt;text-align:right;
mso-pagination:none;border:none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext 1.5pt;
padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in">Date: 28
NOVEMBER 2001<o:p></o:p>

</div>COUNSEL:<o:p></o:p>ASARE-BEDIAKO FOR THE APPELLANTS.<o:p></o:p><div style="mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.5pt;
padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in">

ANTHONY GYAMBIBY (PRINCIPAL STATE ATTORNEY) FOR THE RESPONDENT. <o:p></o:p>

BAMFORD-ADDO, AMPIAH, ADJABENG, ACQUAH AND ADZOE JJSC<o:p></o:p>

</div>JUDGEMENT<o:p></o:p>Adzoe JSC. <o:p></o:p>Delivered the judgment of the court. In July 1992 the appellants
herein and two others were arraigned before the Ashanti Regional Public
Tribunal on various charges of conspiracy to commit forgery, forgery, altering
a forged document and abetment of forgery. The case was The People v Agnes
Ansah, Kwame Amponsah Okyere, Adu Gyamfi Kumaning and Benjamin Kofi Andoh. The
offences were in connection with a will purported to have been prepared by the
first appellant herein, Kwame Amponsah Okyere, a legal practitioner, for the
deceased John Emmanuel Ansah. The complainant who claimed to be the customary
successor of the deceased claimed that the will was not the will of the
deceased and his suspicion was that the accused persons conspired to forge a
will bequeathing a house to the first accused, Agnes Ansah, one of the
daughters of the deceased. The suspicion of forgery centred largely on the
signature which purported to be that of the deceased testator. According to examinations
carried out at the Police Forensic Laboratory, the signature on the will was
not that of the testator, but it was also not shown to have been made by any of
the accused persons. The issues for trial, as rightly identified by the
tribunal itself, were:<o:p></o:p>(1) whether the will was forged or not; and<o:p></o:p>(2) if it was forged, was it done by the accused persons?<o:p></o:p>Much of the evidence relating to these two issues were mere
rumours and suspicions founded on rumours. When the prosecution evidence showed
that none of the accused signed the will, the tribunal observed:<o:p></o:p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.0pt;
margin-left:.5in;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;mso-pagination:none;
border:none;mso-padding-alt:31.0pt 31.0pt 31.0pt 31.0pt;mso-border-shadow:yes">“But is this conclusive that the forgery was not
committed by any of them? The answer is that the fact that the forged signature
was not set down by any accused is not in itself evidence that the forgery was
not committed by them. They need not personally sign. All they need to do is to
cause somebody else to sign what is purported to be the signature of the
deceased. In any case if it were the accused who forged the signature they
would definitely make sure they do not supply a specimen signature to the
police which is likely to implicate them.”<o:p></o:p>Elsewhere, the tribunal made one very important finding. It noted
that the prosecution’s case was also based on the allegation by a prosecution
witness that a Mr Owusu Ansah had alleged that his wife told him that the will
was prepared in her house by the first and second accused and one Twumasi but
the prosecution failed to call Owusu Ansah and his wife who were material
witnesses. The tribunal concluded that the failure to call Owusu Ansah or his
wife was fatal to the prosecution’s case against the first accused; and upon
that the tribunal acquitted and discharged the first accused. Curiously,
however, the tribunal did not use the same yard-stick in measuring the case
against the other accused persons and found them guilty, saying that the second
accused (the first appellant) was the real culprit who committed the forgery. A
careful study of the evidence will leave no one in doubt that the convictions
were based on the fact that the appellants were unable to explain how and by
whom the offending signature could have been affixed to the will.<o:p></o:p>The appellants were not satisfied with their conviction and
therefore appealed to the National Public Tribunal. The appeal could not be
heard before the Constitution, 1992 came into effect and with the new
Constitution in place the appeal had to come before the Court of Appeal.
Original ground (1) before the Court of Appeal was that the conviction was
unreasonable in view of the evidence on the record. Two of the three judges of
the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on this ground, holding that the
conviction was supported by the evidence; the third judge however came to the
conclusion that “there was not a scintilla of evidence” to support the charges
and that the accused deserved to be acquitted. The appeal was accordingly
dismissed on the strength of the majority decision. The appellants have
therefore come before this court as the final arbiter.<o:p></o:p>