Samson Awoyale V. Joshua O. Ogunbiyi (1985)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report

BELLO, J.S.C. 

This judgment only deals with the constitutional issue, to wit, whether the High Court of Kwara State delivered its decision not later than 3 months after the conclusion of final addresses as prescribed by section 258(1) of the Constitution when the case was on appeal before it.

The case was retried by the Igbomina South Central Area Court Grade 1 which dismissed the claim of the plaintiff, now the Respondent, against the defendant, now the Appellant, for ownership of a parcel of land situated in Ujomu-Oro town and injunction restraining the Efundere Family from using the land. The plaintiff successfully appealed to the Upper Area Court Omu-Aran which awarded the disputed land to him. In his turn, the defendant appealed against the judgment of Upper Area Court to the High Court, Ilorin.The High Court allowed his appeal, set aside the decision of the Upper Area Court and restored the judgment of the trial court.

Being dissatisfied with the decision of the High Court, the plaintiff further appealed to the Court of Appeal which allowed his appeal, set aside the judgment of the High Court and restored that of the Upper Area Court. Against that judgment, the defendant has now appealed to this Court and has raised. inter alia, the constitutional question.

The facts relevant to the constitutional issue may be stated at this stage. The appeal in the High Court was argued for four days, namely on April 16, 17, 18 and 2nd May 1980 when the Court reserved judgment to be delivered on 9th June 1980. The judgment was not ready on the reserved date and it was further reserved to 25th July 1980. When the court resumed on the latter date, it did not deliver the judgment but made the following statements:-

“In the middle of the task of judgment writing in this appeal, we were faced with an insurmountable situation which finally halted the writing of the judgment entirely.

We suddenly discovered that Exhibits A, B, C and F are documents written entirely in the Yoruba Language. Although two members of this court have Yoruba language as their mother tongue, the irony of law is that we do not in law, technically-speaking, understand Yoruba. English is the official language of the court and all records which are to be examined and/or considered by us must, as far as possible, be translated into the English language.

As this appeal stands at the moment, part of the record of proceedings is in English and part is in Yoruba, because documentary exhibits once admitted in evidence form part of the record of the court that admits them.

The respondent in this appeal is relying heavily on the documents which he tendered and the untranslated exhibits are prominent among them. We are not allowed by law to use our personal knowledge of any vernacular, more so if such use could end up being to the advantage or disadvantage of any of the parties.

We cannot give a fair consideration to the cases made by the parties to this appeal if we deprive ourselves the benefit of the translations of the exhibits already above listed.

We have therefore thought it fit to charge any sworn and competent translator (Yoruba-English) with the duty of translating the exhibits (or at least the portions of them that are relevant to this case) into the English language.

We wonder if any of the parties, through his counsel, has any objection to the step we propose to take”

Mr. Babalola, counsel for the appellant in that Court, informed the court that he had no objection to the proposal but Mr. Olorunnishola, counsel for the respondent, extensively addressed the court objecting to the proposal on the ground that taking such a course would be tantamount to calling additional evidence.

In its Ruling on the issue, the High Court stated thus:-