AKOSUA DUFIE VRS.pdf - Judicial Training Institute

answered the charge, the evidence ought to be looked at with
great care; the evidence ought to be thoroughly sifted, and the
mind of any Judge who hears it ought to be, first of all in a state
of suspicion…”
In my opinion, the judgment of the trial court was indeed against the weight of
the evidence as the Plaintiffs were not able to discharge the burden to entitle
them to the declaration they sought.
Secondly, it has to be noted that from the pieces of evidence referred to above,
it is clear that the Plaintiffs have not been able to establish convincingly that the
source of funding the acquisition of the properties came from the 2 nd Plaintiff.
This will be explained.
PRINCIPLE ON DEPARTING FROM CONCURRING FINDINGS OF FACT
BY LOWER COURT
At this stage, it must be observed that any attempt to come to different findings
of fact other than those that have been made by the learned trial judge and
affirmed by the learned justices of the Court of Appeal would be met by an
established principle of law. This principle of law is that, an appellate court, such
as this court, can only differ from the findings of fact made by a trial court and
concurred in by an appellate court (just as happened in the instant case) unless
it is satisfied that any advantage enjoyed by the trial court in seeing, hearing and
observing the demeanour of witnesses cannot be explained by the conclusions
reached by the trial court.
Indeed, there is a long line of distinguished foreign and local cases to illustrate
this time honoured and hallowed principle of law.
Cases which immediately come to my mind and attention are the following:
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