Said Ajami V. The Comptroller Of Customs (1952)

LawGlobal Hub Judgment Report – West Africa Court of Appeal

Evidence—”Expert”—Experience; duties of office—Evidence Ordinance, section 56.

Facts

Section 56 of the Evidence Ordinance reads as follows:—
“56. (1) When the Court has to form an opinion upon a point of foreign law, native law or custom, or of science or art, or as to identity of handwriting or finger impressions, the opinions upon that point of persons specially skilled in such foreign law, native law or custom, or science or art, or in questions as to identity of handwriting or finger impressions, are relevant facts.

“(2) Such persons are called experts.”
The point of substance in this appeal was whether a certain witness was admissible as an “ expert ” on whether certain notes described as French Colonial Franc Notes were legal tender in French territory.

The point arose in this way: the appellant had a number of such notes in a suit-case in an aeroplane on the point of leaving an airport in Nigeria, namely Kano in the North, for Rome.

The suit-case and notes were seized and the Comptroller of Customs, as plaintiff, brought an action for penalties against the appellant as defendant (who was a passenger on the plane) for attempting to export the notes on the ground that the export of them was prohibited by the Exchange Control Ordinance and was a contravention of section 125 (1) of the Customs Ordinance (under which proceedings could be taken by virtue of a provision in the Exchange Ordinance).

In the claim made before the Magistrate the Comptroller did not aver that the notes were legal tender in French territory (which he might have done under section 245 of the Customs Ordinance) but called a witness who testified that he was the Manager of Barclays Bank, Kano, that he had 32 years’ experience of banking business, 24 years being in Nigeria, that to the besj of his knowledge the notes were French Colonial Franc Notes and that they were legal tender in French West Africa on the material date; he was not cross-examined.

The Magistrate gave judgment in favour of the Comptroller; the defendant appealed
to the Supreme Court, where he lost, and appealed further, mainly on the ground that the question whether the notes were legal tender was a question of foreign law and that the witness was not shown to be so qualified in it as to render his opinion admissible as that of an expert witness (that is to say as a person “specially skilled” in the subject within the meaning of section 56 of the Evidence Ordinance).

For the Comptroller reliance was put on the witness’s banking experience in Nigeria, which adjoins French West Africa, and on the fact that Barclays Bank was gazetted as an authorised dealer under the Exchange Control Ordinance in foreign currency, as sufficient prima facie to show that the witness was qualified to testify as an expert.

Held

The witness had by virtue of his banking experience in Nigeria peculiar means of knowledge on the subject, and as the manager of a branch of an authorised dealer in foreign currency had important and responsible public duties in relation to such currency and was bound to make himself acquainted with the subject; his evidence was rightly admitted and was sufficient to establish that the notes were legal tender in French West Africa.

Appeal dismissed.