As some officers of Koforidua, circuit court claim judgment missing

Four years after a judgment on a case between Samuel Adu Koranteng (now late) plaintiff and Kofi Pobi, Defendant, some officials of the Koforidua Circuit court,( mangoase division ) Have withheld the docket from the plaintiff and his family even after his death and claimed that the judgment which was given on the case is missing from the docket .

In 2007, when a judgment was given in favour of the late Samuel Adu Koranteng, over a piece of land in the New Juaben Municipality, he thought justice had dealt fairly with him until the unfortunate thing happened.

According to a son of the Late Opaning Adu Koranteng in an interview, the case was filed in the court as far back as the year 2000 and it took close to seven years before Judgment was given in favour of the rightful owner in the year 2007.

He noted that when judgment was given, the defendant was awarded a penalty of GH¢3.9 0 to be paid to the plaintiff for wrongfully claiming ownership of the property.

The refusal of Kofi Pobi, the defendant to pay the court fine and vacate the land paved way for Opaning Adu Koranteng to request for a letter from the court to execute Judgment, which was granted.

However, in the process of claiming copies of the judgment and the proceedings, the docket was pronounced missing. James Dovloe, a docket clerk at the court told a team of journalists investigating the case that he sent the docket to the documentation section of the court for computerization but could not find it afterwards.

Meanwhile, a typist at the court who mentioned her name as Joyce had told journalists that she was given the proceedings and the judgment to type. She noted that because the defendant failed to collect them on time she left the documents in her drawer and left for her annual leave, on her return, she could not find the documents, which implies that they were missing.

James had earlier on told Opaning Adu Koranteng that the ruling and the proceedings would have to be typed first before they could be handed over to him. He was therefore made to pay an amount of GH¢30 to the typist for the processing of the documents.

For four years, Opaning Adu Koranteng traveled to and from his Nyerede Village to the court pursuing his documents until he fell ill in one of his trips to the court and died shortly in March 2012. The 80-year-old man who wanted justice could not even get the chance to have access to the Judgment that went his favour until his sudden death due to what his family regarded as malfeasance in the country’s judicial system.

Interestingly, James Dovloe, the docket clerk, found the docket immediately after the death of opaning Adu Koranteng. This was after the children of the deceased had threatened him that they would expose his illicit deals in the media, if he did not provide the missing docket.

Dramatically he sent the docket straight to one Reverend George J.A. Amoah, a senior High Court Registrar. Mr Dovloe became mad at the family of the deceased for reporting him to the senior court registrar and threatened to deal with the family members.

Interestingly when the matter got to the court registrar, instead of making copies of the judgment and proceedings initially declared missing to the children of the deceased, he told them to write a formal letter to the court since nothing apart from that could let them have access to the documents.

Meanwhile, he had lost touch of the fact that a formal letter was prepared and sent to the court registrar by the deceased when he was alive. This happened in 2010 but the court officials threw it off and pretended they had not seen it.

On 5 November 2007, the late Opaning Adu Koranteng wrote to the court registrar “I would be grateful if you could furnish me with certified True Copy of proceedings in respect of the case between Samuel Adu Koranteng vrs Kofi Pobi and Yaw Ofosu. I am the plaintiff in this case counting on your cooperation.

The family of the late opaning Adu Koranteng has therefore appealed to the minister of Justice and Attorney General, the Chief Justice and the minister of Interior to set up a team to investigate the case to find out why these court officials have withheld justice from old man for such a long period.

“As we speak to you now the documents are in the custody of the high court registrar. We do not know why they are refusing to give them to us four years after judgment has been pronounced. What else can delay this apart from what we are guessing”, the stressed.