Estoppel by Judicial Decision in Ghana

Abstract

In Ghana most land cases are determined according to Ghanaian customary law. One question, however, has since early colonial times always been decided by common-law principles: the question whether a party is estopped by previous litigation from making a claim.2 Thus a court often applies common law to determine whether an issue may be raised, and then, having given an affirmative answer, applies customary law to determine its validity. The courts have never stated any legal justification for this application of common-law rules in essentially customary-law cases. The early colonial judges, perhaps because they were British lawyers, seem to have regarded the matter as self-evident. Later judges followed the earlier decisions, and since 1960 statute law has for convenience confirmed the practice