YAW APPAU, JSC
This appeal hangs on a very thin legal thread. The issue involved is so narrow that it should not have attracted the copious submissions made by both counsel for the appellants and the respondent in their over eighty (80) page statements of case filed on 15/05/2018 and 23/07/2018 respectively. Perhaps, the parties were lured into charting this course because of the manner in which the Court of Appeal dealt with the appeal before it.
It is trite learning that an appeal is by way of re-hearing. The rules of the Court of Appeal, 1997 [C.I. 19] are very clear on this. Rule 8 (1) of the said rules provides as follows:
“An appeal to the Court shall be by way of re-hearing and shall be brought by a notice of appeal”.
This principle that an appeal is by way of re-hearing applies mutatis mutandis to this Court in the exercise of its appellate function as it does to the Court of Appeal. There are numerous authoritative judicial decisions of this Court on this as expressed in cases …