IN THE GAMBIA COURT OF APPEAL

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this appeal. The Appellant was therefore required in the circumstances to file this appeal within fourteen days from the 18 th of December, 2002 inclusive of Sundays and Public Holidays. The notice commencing this appeal was filed on the 13 th of February, 2008, which was more than five years after the ruling of the 18 th of December 2002. The right to bring this appeal is completely extinguished thereby rendering the appeal against the said ruling of 18 th of December, 2002, and grounds 1 to 4, of the grounds of appeal predicated thereon, incompetent and unarguable. In the cases of Banna Beach Hotel V Thompson Holiday Ltd, (supra) and Alagie Jallow V Guaranty Trust Bank (supra), this court struck out the Notice of Appeal commencing those appeals for non compliance with the statutorily provisions of Rule 14 GCA rules. I have no wish to depart from those decisions. Therefore grounds 1 to 4 of the grounds of appeal, issue one predicated thereon and all argument advanced by the Appellant in furtherance thereof, are liable to be struck out. However before striking out these Grounds of Appeal I am constrained to consider another angle presented by the Appellants to save these grounds of appeal. This angle is premised on the question as to whether these grounds of appeal can be competently argued without the necessity of filing an appeal against the decision of Itam J of the 18 th December 2002. This question was canvassed with so much anxiety in this appeal, that I cannot resist the urge of adding my voice in a bid to resolve same. The Appellants position on this issue is clearly expressed in the Appellants Reply on points of law, wherein Appellants Counsel, contends that Grounds 1 to 4 can be properly raised in this appeal. She placed reliance on the dictum of Ogwuegbu JSC (as he then was) to be found on Page 361 of Saraki V Kotoye (supra) where his Lordship declared thus “Section 227 of the Evidence Act relates to wrongful admission or exclusion of evidence in the course of trial which can be taken upon appeal after a final determination of the substantive case by the court of trial”. Appellants Counsel submitted that S.226 of the 14
Evidence Act of The Gambia is in pari material with Section 227 of the Evidence Act of Nigeria, and contended that in that event, the question of rejects A,B, and C contained in the Ruling of 18 th December, 2002, is properly before the court. Let me straight away say here that I disagree completely with Learned Counsel for the Appellant on this issue. Now S.226 of the Evidence Act of The Gambia, 1994, provides thus: “(1) The wrongful admission of evidence shall not of itself be a ground for the reversal of any decision in any case where it shall appear to the court on appeal that the evidence so admitted cannot reasonably be held to have affected the decision and that such decision would have been the same if such evidence had not been admitted; (2) The wrongful exclusion of evidence shall not of itself be a ground for the reversal of any decision in any case if it appears to the court on appeal that had the evidence so excluded been admitted, it may reasonably be held that the decision would have been the same.” Let me quickly observe here that there is nothing in Section 226 (supra) to suggest that a party aggrieved by an interlocutory decision of a trial court cannot, appeal against such an interlocutory decision during the pendence of the substantive suit. No that is not the purport of Section 226 (supra). Irrespective of the foregoing, I must point out that the current judicial trend however is that parties are discouraged from engaging in irrelevant interlocutory appeal over trifling legal issues. This is because this practice has been recognized over the years as one of the greatest causes of delay in justice. This not withstanding, I am of the firm view that where the question considered at the interlocutory 15
Page 1 and 2: IN THE GAMBIA COURT OF APPEAL BANNA
Page 3 and 4: (5) The Learned Trial Judge was wro
Page 5 and 6: 2. Whether the fact that the Defend
Page 7 and 8: appealing against two decision of t
Page 9 and 10: 4) The Learned Judge was wrong in r
Page 11 and 12: I have myself carefully perused Gro
Page 13: Bank of The Gambia V Continent Bank
Page 17 and 18: wrongful admission or exclusion of
Page 19 and 20: Furthermore, I am in complete conso
Page 21 and 22: It was submitted for the Appellant
Page 23 and 24: intends or conveys. What actually i
Page 25 and 26: ISSUE THREE Whether the Appellants
Page 27 and 28: The true parties to the said agreem
Page 29 and 30: 1. The Plaintiff’s is a limited l
Page 31 and 32: 3. The Defendant denies that it mad
Page 33 and 34: By letter of the 3 rd February, 200
Page 35 and 36: 23. Save as hereinbefore expressly
Page 37 and 38: The Plaintiff’s further averred t
Page 39 and 40: In the said letter the Defendants s
Page 41 and 42: 8. Paragraph 8 of the Reply of Stat
Page 43 and 44: Now the Appellant case at the trial
Page 45 and 46: 4 th of November 1998 and the 3 rd
Page 47 and 48: the purpose of adding a term to the
Page 49 and 50: It is obvious that the foregoing le
Page 51 and 52: appellant. There is no doubt that i

IN THE GAMBIA COURT OF APPEAL

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