Posted by The Port Harcourt Telegraph on
Dissatisfied with the ruling of a Port Harcourt high court, Chief Inye C. Charlie Amachree, who is challenging the recognition of Chief (Professor) Theophilus J.T. Princewill as the Amanyanabo of Kalabari, has gone to the court of appeal.
Dissatisfied with the ruling of a Port Harcourt high court, Chief Inye C. Charlie Amachree, who is challenging the recognition of Chief (Professor) Theophilus J.T. Princewill as the Amanyanabo of Kalabari, has gone to the court of appeal.
Chief Amachree is asking the appeal court sitting in Port Harcourt to turn down the high court ruling delivered on April 6, 2004 by Justice W.A. Chechey that the appellant case against Chief (Prof) T.J.T. Princewill and others including Rivers State government and Shell Petroleum Development Company, was an abuse of court process.
He based his appeal on the ground that "the trial judge misdirected himself on the facts when he held that paragraph 3 (iii) of the statement of defence which states that not only is the present plaintiff represented in that suit as a plaintiff, his name personally appears as a co-plaintiff on record. He has filed a notice of discontinuance on 16th July 2003 but this has not been formally granted or heard by the trial court. He filed it over 6 months after filing and service of the last statement of defence in the case on him."
Chief Amachree contended that on application of this nature, the court was enjoined not to look at the statement of defence but only at the writ of summons and statement of claim, adding that facts pleaded in the statement of defence are not on oath and are not taken as established unless proved in evidence.
"The defendants who asserted that the plaintiff was served the statement of defence and that pleadings have been closed had the burden of proving same and this they failed to do," he said.
One ground two, the appellant said the trial judge erred in law when he held that this suit constituted an abuse of the court process because of the pendency of suit Nos PHC/972/02, PHC/620/00 and PHC/624/02, saying that the defendants had admitted that suit PHC/972/02 was no longer pending in court having been struck out.
He said as the plaintiff he had maintained in his counter affidavit that he was never a party or gave his consent to the suits, adding that this was never challenged in evidence.
Chief Amachree further argued that "the law will certainly not force a party who is not interested in matters pending in court to be bound by them, even when he asserts positively that he was not a party and never gave his consent to them. Meanwhile, the appeal court has awarded the sum of N3,000 to the appellant against the defendants when the hearing of motion on notice was fixed for May 19, 2005 following a delay by the respondents in filing their defence.