Dennis v Shiancoe et al [2013] LRSC 10 (19 February 2013)
Dennis v. Shiancoe et al [2013] LRSC 10 (19 February 2013)
Wilmot Dennis and Henry W. Dennis, Administrators of the Intestate Estate of the Late Wilmot F. Dennis of the City of Paynesville, Montserrado County Liberia, INFORMANTS VERSUS Jonathan Shiancoe and Samuel Vaye of 72nd Paynesville Monrovia, Liberia, RESPONDENTS
BILL OF INFORMATION
Heard: November 14, 2012 Decided: February 19, 2013
MADAM JUSTICE WOLOKOLIE DELIVERED THE OPINION OF THE COURT
This matter poses yet another problem prevailing in our society relative to ejectment matters where persons affected by the decisions handed down by the Supreme Court use every legal means to evade the enforcement of the Court’s mandate; thereby having matters which was decided by the Supreme Court come up numerous times under various legal captions legal captions purposely to evade enforcement of decisions of the Court and to make settlement of cases ineffective.
The genesis of this case is reported in our Law Report, Volume [1988] LRSC 59; 35 LLR 310 (1988) Samuel Dennis et al vs. Augustus Barbour Tarpeh et al.
Samford Dennis et al, plaintiffs in the court below, whose heirs are now informants before us, filed a complaint against Augustus Barbour Tarpeh et al, defendants/respondents, in an action of ejectment before the Sixth Judicial Circuit in 1972, to recover possession of a certain parcel of land situated in Paynesville which the informants alleged the respondents were holding illegally.
During the March Term, A. D. 1978, the case was called for trial and predicated upon the joint request of parties, the trial court constituted a board of arbitration comprising a team of surveyors, one of whom was selected by the plaintiffs, Samuel Dennis et al, one by the respondents, Augustus Barbour Tarpeh et al, and one appointed by the Ministry of Land, Mines and Energy, by request of the trial court, to study all documents related to the property and to conduct a survey of the disputed property, make a report to the court to include the board’s findings and recommendations. The board after due consideration, submitted its findings and recommendations to the court, serving copies on all the parties concerned.
There were no legal objections interposed by any of the parties to the arbitration report. The trial court therefore confirmed and affirmed the report to form a part of records in the proceedings and thereafter rendered final judgment in the case, ordering the clerk to reissue a writ of possession, placed same into the hands of the Sheriff to proceed on the premises and place the Dennis’s in possession of their properties.
The reported case reference supra reports the difficulty that the Barbours, grantors of the respondent herein, pose in having the board of arbitrators put the Dennis’s in possession of property as per their deeds, and the extent to which several mandates of the Supreme Court were frustrated by numerous petitions filed before the Justices in Chambers and finally an appeal to the Full Bench from which the Supreme Court instructed that the parties be put in possession of their property based on the board of arbitration’s report of 1978 and with the assistance of surveyors.
After yet another mandate of the Supreme Court based on a bill of information filed by the Barbours in 1989, on August 30, 2005, a writ of repossession was issued by the lower court ordering that the Sheriff put the informants in possession of their property, evicting, ejecting, and ousting the respondents from the premises with immediate effect and as per the mandate of the Supreme Court. It was the during the enforcement of the Supreme Court’s mandate when Jonathan Shaincoe and Samuel Vaye, on January 25, 2006, filed a petition for a writ of prohibition before the ad hoc Chambers Justice James Zota. The petition reads as follows:
PETITIONERS PETITION
And now come Jonathan Shiancoe and Samuel Vaye, petitioners in the above entitled cause of action and most respectfully pray Your Honor to issue the Alternative Writ of Prohibition, for the following legal and factual reasons, wit:
1. Because petitioners say they are named as respondents along with fifty (50) others in a bill of information filed by the Intestate Estate of the late Wilmot Dennis on June 4, 2005, and served on petitioners herein on June 21, 2005, growing out of the case to which petitioners herein were never a party nor privy to any party.
2. And also because petitioners say they filed their formal returns to the bill of information on June 30, 2005 and pleading rested.
3. Petitioners say that the bill of information was assigned on August 25, 2005, for hearing to be heard on August 29, 2005 in keeping with that assignment, only petitioners herein appeared by and thru their counsel while the informants and the other co-respondents did not appear. Judge Emery Paye wrote out an order mandating the Clerk to issue eviction orders so that all respondents excepts co-respondents Jonathan Shiancoe and Sam Vaye be evicted since Jonathan Shiancoe had filed returns to the bill of information which therefore required a hearing.
4. Petitioners complain and say that, contrary to Judge Paye’s clear instruction, the clerk of court erroneously issued the writ of possession on August 30, 2005, listing all respondents including petitioners as persons to be evicted. The clerk also wrote a letter to the Director of Police requesting police backup for the court officers, and again listed petitioners herein as persons to be evicted.
5. Petitioners also say and complain that no action was taken from the date the writ of possession was issued, August 30, 2005, until Judge Paye left the court’s jurisdiction in September and was succeeded by Judge Wyston Henries, now of sainted memory, who was succeeded by Judge Korboi Nuta, now Ad Hoc Associate Justice. Due to the elevation of Judge Nuta, co-respondent Judge A. Blamo Dixon has been assigned to the Civil Law Court to complete the December Term of Judge Nuta and one of his first actions is to order the enforcement of the writ of possession against petitioners who were to be exempt from eviction in keeping with Judge Paye’s mandate.
6. Petitioners say in the early hours of this morning, Tuesday, January 24, 2006, some five months later, Judge Dixon had the Sheriff to proceed to petitioners’ residence at 72nd Paynesville, and violently dispossess, evict and oust petitioners with no prior notice and without the bill of information and returns being disposed, of thereby inflicting serious harm and loss to petitioners and denying them due process of law.
7. Petitioners say and complain that when their counsel appeared at the Civil Law Court at about 1:15 p.m. today and bought to the attention of Judge Blamo Dixon the illegal and wrongful conduct meted out against petitioners herein, he reviewed the case file and confirmed from the record that Judge Paye did indeed exclude and exempt petitioners herein from being evicted and yet Judge Dixon deliberately declined and in fact refused to take any action to bring relief to petitioners and told petitioners’ counsel to seek remedy from the Chamber Justice of the Supreme Court.
8. Petitioners say the action by Judge Dixon is a travesty of justice to say the least. Petitioners have been harmed, embarrassed and emotionally distressed due to the illegal, prejudicial, malicious and callous act of respondents at the instance of the informants Dennis, especially Judge Dixon for his refusal to halt his illegal eviction of petitioners even though he admitted that the Clerk had erroneously implemented Judge Paye’s orders. Petitioners therefore come to this high tribunal of justice seeking relief and requesting Your Honor to order Judge Dixon to repossess petitioners and thereafter hear the bill of information and the returns filed by petitioners.
9. Petitioners say prohibition will lie and does lie in the instant case as Judge Dixon has exceeded his authority and proceeded by wrong rules in illegally enforcing the orders of his predecessor Judge Paye. Prohibition will also lie because petitioners have been evicted without due process of law in that the bill of information out of which petitioners have been today evicted has not yet been heard and a ruling made. Petitioners hereto attach copies of the handwritten order of Judge Paye, Writ of Possession and the order to the Police hereby marked Exhibit PT/1, PT/2 and PT/3 respectively.
10. Petitioners say this petition has not been filed for the purpose of delay or baffling justice but in good faith and in the interest of transparent justice.
WHEREFORE, and in view of the foregoing legal and factual reasons, petitioners most respectfully pray Your Honor to issue the alternative writ of prohibition restraining co-respondent Judge Dixon, his Sheriff and his clerk along with the police officers from illegally and prejudicially evicting petitioners and if by the time the order is received the eviction is already completed then they should be ordered to immediately repossess petitioners and stay all further proceeding.
Petitioners also pray that after a hearing is had, that the peremptory writ of prohibition be issued against the respondents permanently restraining and enjoining them from further harassing and molesting petitioners and that Your Honor would grant unto petitioners any and all other and further relief as would be just, legal and equitable, with all costs of these proceedings against respondents.
On the same day, January 25, 2006, the Clerk of the Supreme Court on orders of the ad hoc Chambers Justice wrote to His Honor Blamo A. Dixon, the assigned Circuit Judge, citing him to a conference on January 2, 2006, and ordering him to repossess the petitioners, staying all further action pending the outcome of the conference. It is this order of the Chambers Justice which remains pending and has prompted the Dennis’s, informants, to file a bill of information before us.
The Bill of information brought before this Court on May 9, 2011, by the Dennis’s is quite extensive, basically, its contents the informants are administrators of the intestate estate of the late Wilmot F. Dennis; that as a result of an action of ejectment filed since 1972, the Civil Law Court ruled in their favor on 26th day of April A. D. 1979 and issued a writ of possession; that the Honorable Supreme Court of Liberia en banc ruled twice in favor of informants; and that said rulings of the Full Bench were held on July 29, 1988, and July 14, 1989 respectively; that based upon the two Supreme Court rulings, a bill of information was filed on June 14, 2005, with the Civil Law Court, Sixth Judicial Circuit praying said court to enforce the rulings of the Full Bench of the Honorable Supreme Court of Liberia. Informants further complained that following the hearing a bill of information was filed before His Honor Emery S. Paye, Assigned Circuit Judge, Civil Law Court; however, a writ of repossession was issued on August 30, A.D. 2005, in favor of informants; while the Civil Law Court was enforcing the mandate of the Honorable Supreme Court by effecting the eviction of respondents and other illegal occupants from the subject property, the respondents filed a petition for writ of prohibition on 24th January A.D. 2006, before ad hoc Chambers Justice James Zota, praying him to prohibit the Civil Law Court from enforcing the mandate of the Honorable Supreme Court. Based on this petition for prohibition filed by respondents before the ad hoc Chambers Justice, His Honour James Zota cited the parties to a conference on February 2, 2006, and further ordered that the respondents be repossessed of the subject property pending the outcome of the conference, quite contrary to the ruling of the Full Bench which ruled that informants were entitled to the subject property. The informants further stated in their information that from the 2nd of February A.D. 2006, the date of the scheduled conference up to and including the date of the filing of this bill of information, a little over five years, said conference has never been held and respondents continued to be in possession of the informants’ property at the detriment of informants’ interest and in contravention of the opinion of the Full Bench of the Honorable Supreme Court of Liberia which ruled in favor of informants; the act of the ad hoc Chambers Justice preventing the lower court from enforcing the mandate of the Full Bench in favor of informants has denied informants of their legitimate property for over five years which is in total violation of Article 11 of the Constitution of Liberia which guarantees informants their right to property; that the informants having obtained judgment on the 26th day of April, A.D. 1979, which judgment was confirmed in 1988 and 1989 by the Full Bench of the Honorable Supreme Court of the Republic of Liberia, the within named respondents were legally barred from pursuing litigation proceedings in the selfsame matter, since indeed, the affirmation of the ruling of the court below by the Supreme Court en banc brought the case to finality; informants also submitted that with the existence of two Supreme Court opinions in favor of informants for the subject property, the granting of prohibition against the informants by the ad hoc Justice Zota constitutes not only a violation of Article 66 of the Constitution of Liberia, but it is also highly contemptuous of the Full Bench of the Honorable Supreme Court of the Republic of Liberia, since indeed, such act on the part of respondents and their counsel was purely intended to impede the lower court from executing the mandate of the Honorable Supreme Court of Liberia; and the Supreme Court has often said where the execution of a mandate of the Supreme Court to a lower court is impeded by the institution of proceedings to prevent the execution of the mandate, the parties and counsel instituting the proceedings are in contempt.
The crux of the bill of information, the informant said was to bring to the attention of the Honorable members of the Supreme Court en banc the illegal and unconstitutional act of a single Justice of the Supreme Court to review the decisions of majority of his colleagues, when, in fact, he did not have such authority to do so in keeping with Law; that the Honorable Supreme Court of Liberia has strongly condemned such illegal practice of the Justice presiding in Chambers in several of its opinions; and in this connection said in the case, Wolo v. Wolo, 8LLR 453 (1944) that no single justice of the Supreme Court can legally issue any restraining writ to adversely affect any decision of the Court en banc. Further, in the case Mahmoud vs, Pearson, Jalloh et al, 37LLR3, (1992), text at Pages 11 and 12: the Supreme Court also stated, A Justice of the Supreme Court cannot issue a writ of prohibition restraining execution of a prior mandate by the Full Bench court to an inferior court; an attorney who attempts to frustrate the execution of a mandate of the Supreme Court by applying to the Justice presiding in Chambers for a writ of prohibition to the full Court will be punished for contempt. From the Supreme Court Opinions quoted, the informants said it was clear that the Ad hoc Chambers Justice acted ultra vires when he granted a stay of the Supreme Court’s mandate in favor of respondents, and which was being enforced by the Lower Court. The informant therefore prayed the Court en banc to undo that which was illegally done by the ad hoc Chambers Justice; order the court below to resume jurisdiction and enforce the mandate of the Supreme Court, placing informants in possession of his property, and rule all costs in the information proceedings against the respondents.
To this information, the respondents, Jonathan Shiancoe and Samuel Vaye filed their returns in which they state that they were not party to any possessory action instituted by the informant where adverse judgment had been rendered and/or writs of ejectment and execution executed against respondent; that the final judgment of the Supreme Court of 1989, and upon which the informants were relying to have the respondent ejected did not affect them because they were never a party to the action or any action, and neither did co-respondent Jonathan Shiancoe purchase his property from Augusta Barbour Tarpeh the defendant in the suit instituted by informants; that the ad hoc Chambers Justice being cognizance of the law that a judgment of the trial court out of which proceedings a writ of possession grows, cannot legally be enforced against those who were not parties to the suit and they can neither be bound by the judgment rendered in such action, Judge Zota did not go contrary to the ruling of the Supreme Court en banc when he ordered that the repossession against the respondents be halted.
The respondents also challenged the capacity of the informants stating the Letters of Administration annexed to the informants’ information confers no authority on the informants to act on behalf of the alleged estate of the late Wilmot F. Dennis, since the said Letters of Administration which informants relied on to bring the information expired more five years ago and it is well known that a Letters of Administration has a lifespan of one year, and as such, the May 30, 2005 Letters of Administration annexed to informants’ information was invalid and of no legal effect and purpose.
The respondents said prohibition would lie in all such cases where the trial court attempts to effect a writ of possession against one whom judgment was not concluded, as in the instant case. Hence, His Honor Ad Hoc Chambers Justice James W. Zota did not review or go contrary to the ruling of the Honorable Supreme Court en banc since it was the trial judge who was misled by the informants to wrongfully implement the mandate of the Honorable Supreme Court by dispossessing respondents from their lawful and legal property since the Judgment referred to and relied upon by the informants were not concluded against the respondent.
The Court called the bill of information for hearing on November 2, 2011, but it was postponed for November 16, 2011. While the matter remained pending, a second bill of information was filed by the informants, bringing to the attention of this Court that after the first bill of information remained pending, the respondent brazenly sold portion of informant’s property to one Boima Fahnbulleh and issued him a deed on November 20, 2011, few days after the matter was called. This act or conduct of respondents, informants said was in defiance of the Court and an affront to the Supreme Court, intended to obstruct, embarrass, and hinder the Court in its administration of justice and which constitutes an offense of and against the authority and dignity of the Court.
At the call of the matter for hearing on November 14, 2012, the Supreme Court decided that it would consolidate both bills of information of May 9, 2011, and April 2, 2012.
The records reveal the difficulties the lower court had in putting the informants in possession of their properties as per the board of arbitration’s recommendation. The technical report of February 21, 1989, set out to demarcate the boundary lines between the Dennis’s and Barbours reads:
TECHNICAL REPORT ON THE LAND DISPUTE BETWEEN SAMUEL FORD DENNIS ET AL VERSUS AUGUSTA BARBOUR TARPEH, FEBRUARY 21, 1989.
On the 26th day of January, 1989, we were mandated by the Honorable Court to demarcate the boundary lines between the Dennis’s and the Barbour’s.
Upon the request made by the Court to the Ministry of Lands, Mines & Energy through the Honorable Minister, three surveyors were sent in persons of Messrs Kempson Murray Chairman, Morris Kanneh Member, and Elijah Queateh who were all qualified by the Court.
We the undersigned have investigated all facts leading to the various parcels of land in dispute presented to the Court for justice to be rendered.
The parties concerned indicated the corners of their property.
The deeds and site investigated are as follows:
(1) Warranty deed from G.C. Dennis to Wilmot F. Dennis situated in the Settlement of #1 Mesurado River, registered in Volume 36, page 220 and probated on the 2nd day of February, A.D. 1915, which contains 100 acres.
(2) Warranty deed from G.C. Dennis to Wilmot F. Dennis situated in the Settlement of #1Mesurado River, registered in Volume 36, page 221 and probated on the 1st of February A.D. 1915, which contains 30 and 70 acres respectively.
(3) Public Land Sale Deed from the Republic of Liberia to Thomas Barbour situated in the Settlement of Old Field, Mesurado River known as Barbourville, registered in Volume 15, page 444 and probation date not mentioned contains 100 acres.
(4) Public Land Sale Deed from Republic of Liberia to Thomas Barbour situated in the Settlement of Old Field, Mesurado River known as Barbourville, registered in Volume 15, page 445 and probation date not mentioned which contains 50 acres.
OBSERVATIONS:
It was observed that the deeds description of the Dennis’s confirmed with the ground information since all the three parcels of land lying in the same area.
The different points illustrated on the map and the deed description of the Barbours do not agree with the ground information.
Since these two points in the ground shown to us by the Barbours do not conform to one another, this creates problem in commencing because the actual commencing point of the entire land cannot be defined.
Because of the misinterpretation of the both deeds description and ground information this cause the surveyors to demand for the deed(s) of the property adjoining to the 150 acres, but the request was not granted by the Barbours.
We were not also allowed by the Barbours to resurvey according to the plot presented to us by the Court, which caused an overlap in the system.
Three cornerstones marked D. EST were also removed during our field observation which created delay in the work.
We, the undersigned Surveyors strongly believe that overlap in the surveying was due to the fact that they cannot identify their actual commencing point.
Please check the map which is self-explanatory as it has been labeled.
RECOMMEMDATION:
According to our entire observation, we the undersigned Surveyors recommend the Honorable Court to attach serious importance to the old plot that was presented to us by the Court. Let the deed(s) of the Barbours adjoining the 150 acres be presented to the Court and points also be identified.
Respectfully submitted,
Kempson Murray, Chairman
Morris Kanneh, Member
Elijah Queateh, Member
The Dennis’s property having been identified, all attempts after this report to put the Dennis’s in possession of their parcels of land as per the board of arbitration’s report of 1978, met up with resistance as with the respondents herein complaining that they were not party to the original action of ejectment.
The Dennis’s property having been identified, all attempts after this report to put the Dennis’s in possession of their parcels of land as per the board of arbitration’s report of 1978, met up with resistance as with the respondents herein complaining that they were not party to the original action of ejectment.
In his argument before us, counsel for the respondent, cited a principle extant in our jurisdiction, and propounded in the case, Tubman vs. Murdoch, 4LLR 179, 184, (1934), in which this Court said:
It is a rule of universal application that the rights of no one shall be concluded by a judgment rendered in a suit to which he is not a party, and that a party cannot be bound by a judgment without being allowed a day in court. He must be cited or have made himself a party in order to authorize a personal judgment against him. A judgment rendered against a party who is brought in by motion as a defendant after the trial is concluded is erroneous as to such party.
A court cannot render a valid judgment in favor of a party who is not before the court and is not represented in any manner in the action.
However, the counsel failed to note the extension of this principle cited in the same case in which this Court also said, A judgment concludes only parties to the suit, and those in privity of relation with them either as a privity in blood, in representation, or in estate (emphasis ours); 183 ibid.
Though the respondents contended that they were not party to the ejectment action, the records before us show that the respondents’ grantor, Johnny Barbour, was one of the defendants in the ejectment action filed below, and he and the other Barbours had filed before the Supreme Court numerous petitions, the last being a bill of information captioned,:
BILL OF INFORMATION
Augusta Barbour-Tarpeh, Johnny Barbour, et al of the City of Monrovia, Liberia, INFORMANT
Versus His Honor George S.B. Tulay, Assigned Circuit Judge, Civil Law Court, Sixth Judicial Circuit Court for Montserrado County, December Term A.D. 1988 and Samford Dennis, Estella Dennis Tulay, all of the City of Monrovia, Liberia, RESPONDENTS.
GROWING OUT OF CASE:
ACTION OF EJECTMENT
Samford Dennis, Estella Dennis-Tulay of Monrovia Liberia, PLAINTIFFS Versus Augusta Barbour-Tarpeh, Johnny Barbour, et al also of the City of Monrovia, Liberia, DEFENDANTS.
This Judgment Without Opinion, decided July 14, 1989, was brought about when counsel for the Dennis’s, informants herein, applied the Court to dismiss the bill of information filed based on the failure of the Barbours to proceed with their petition filed. This Court granted the application, dismissed the bill of information and ordered the Clerk of the Supreme Court to send a mandate to the court below to resume jurisdiction over the case out of which the information grew, and to proceed to enforce the mandate of the Court. This was the second mandate from the Supreme Court mandating the court below to proceed with the arbitration report.
There is no dispute from the records that the Barbours did all they could to frustrate the finalization of this matter. The filing of various petitions by the respondents herein, who were in privy with the Barbours, further exacerbated and frustrated the finalization of the matter of ejection in which the trial court gave judgment in 1978. In his argument before the Full Bench, when the attention of the respondents’ counsel was drawn to the respondents’ deed and the name of Johnny Barbour as their grantor, he finally admitted that though the respondents were not a party to the ejectment action as alleged in their petition for a writ of prohibition filed before the ad hoc Justice in Chamber, they were in privy with their grantor who had been liable in the action of ejectment. The minutes of the October Term, 2011, 14th day’s sitting of the Supreme Court reads:
Counsel for respondents in closing, prays as follows: Wherefore and in view of the foregoing facts that the grantor of respondents herein was a part of the defendants in the case involving Samuel Ford Dennis and Augusta Barbour Tarpeh, respondents say that as to claims by the estate of Samuel Ford Dennis, respondents concede the fact that judgment was rendered against their grantor; however, in view of the fact that the defendants in these proceedings represent a separate and distinct estate, the Wilmot Dennis’s estate, respondents pray that since the informants have not shown any nexus between the two estates, the information should be denied.
Counsel for the respondents having embarrassingly conceded that the respondents were in privy with their grantors, he swayed his argument to the issue of the capacity of the informant to evict the respondents since they had not shown proof of their relationship to Samuel Ford Dennis et al., plaintiffs in the ejectment action in the court below, and that the informants represented a separate and distinct estate. The informants in turn argued that they are the legitimate heirs of the estates of Samuel Ford Dennis et al, and it was on May 30, 2005, that they obtained their Letters of Administration. Thereafter, on August 30, 2005, they obtained a writ from the trial court to repossess them as per the Supreme Court’s mandate, but their efforts were thwarted by the resistance of the respondents to the Supreme Court’s mandate and which resistance has continued up to the present. This challenge to the capacity of the informants to act in place of the plaintiffs in the original action of which the information grows should have been raised before the court below and not for the first time before the Supreme Court in a petition for prohibition. We are convinced that the counsel for the respondent is aware of the legal principle extant that issues not raised to be passed upon by the trial court cannot be raised for the first time before the Supreme Court for its consideration; AZIA vs. BCCI, 35LLR 455, 465-466, (1988); Cooper vs. Cooper, 38LLR 18, 523, (1998). Raising this issue for before the Supreme Court was just one of counsel’s means of circumventing the implementation of this Court’s mandate.
Having gone through the facts in order to portray the length at which the enforcement of the various mandates of this Court were thwarted, the issue germane to this bill of information is whether a writ of prohibition can lie against the ruling and a mandate of the Bench en banc, and whether the Bill of Information will lie?
Our law has provided a mechanism for the reporting on the improper enforcement of a Supreme Court’s mandate. The application to be made to court where a party protests the execution of a mandate from the Supreme Court is a bill of information which is filed before the Full Bench of the Supreme Court. The Revised Rules of the Supreme Court, Part 12. Bill of
Information reads:
(a) A Bill of Information will lie to prevent a Judge or any Judicial Officer who attempts to execute the mandate of the Supreme Court in an improper manner from doing so.
(b) The Bill of Information will also lie to prevent any one whomsoever from interfering with the Judgment and/or Mandate of the Supreme Court.
(c) The Bill of Information shall be venued before the Court en banc and shall be field with the Clerk of Court. The approval of the Chief Justice or an Associate Justice shall not be required prior to the filing thereof.
(d) Once a Bill of Information shall have been filed, it shall be governed by the procedures outlined in these Rules and the Civil Procedure Law for handling of Petitions.
(e) Any counselor who files a Bill of Information before this Court assigning reasons therefore other than the reasons expressly prescribed by these Rules shall be penalized by the imposition of a fine, suspension or disbarment.
The complaint of the respondents in their petition for a writ of prohibition was that the mandate of the Supreme Court was being improperly executed against them as they were not a party to the suit out of which the mandate grew. This complaint which we have proved unfounded should have been venue before the Full Bench in a bill of information. The respondents having wrongly filed a petition for a writ of prohibition before the Chamber Justice, the Justice should not have entertained a hearing of the petition. By him having done so and ordered a stayed of the mandate, the Chambers Justice was in error and his stay violated the principle laid down by this Court in the case Wolo vs. Wolo, 8LLR, 453, (1944) that “no single Justice of the Supreme Court can legally issue any restraining writ to adversely affect any decision of the Court en banc.
The stay order of the ad hoc Chambers Justice, being in error, his action was tantamount to interference with the mandate of the Supreme Court, and therefore a Bill of information will lie.
As we have said, this matter has been long outstanding because of the failure of some parties to concede to the judgment of the Supreme Court. We do know that all decisions made by this Court are not favored by parties, but be what it may, judgments of this Court are made on evidence presented and consideration of the law governing such evidence. It is only when parties are made to obey the mandate of the courts, particularly the Supreme Court, the Court of final arbiter, can the rule of law be effective and adherence to the rule of law ensured.
This Court has stated that where execution of a mandate of the Supreme Court to a lower court is impeded by the institution of proceedings to prevent execution of the mandate, the parties and counsel instituting the proceedings are in contempt; In re: The Contempt proceedings of Counsellor Flaawgaa R. Macfarland, 37LLR 43, 45 (1992); a lawyer therefore who assist his clients in baffling and delaying the enforcement of our courts mandates to the detriment of making the courts irrelevant in its administration of justice is in contempt of Court. Rule 1 of the Lawyers Code of Professional and Legal Ethics also states, It shall be unprofessional for any lawyer to advise, initiate or otherwise participate directly or indirectly in any act that tend to undermine or impugn the authority, dignity, integrity of the court or judges thereby hindering the effective administration of justice. In this regard, we find it necessary to impose a fine on Counselor David B. Gibson for payment of Three Hundred United States Dollars (US$300.00) to be paid into government’s revenue within seventy-two (72) hours as of the handing down of this opinion.
The informants in another bill of information filed before us have brought to the attention of this Court that co-respondent Jonathan Shiancoe sold portion of the informants’ property few days after this matter was called up for hearing and the matter pending disposition thereof. This information brought to this Court is grave and a further indication of the co-respondent lack of respect and regard for the authority of the Court. We therefore state that that any sale of property by the co-respondent Jonathan Shiancoe which falls within the parcel of land demarcated as the Dennis’s property is void ab initio and of no effect.
Wherefore and in view of the foregoing, the bill of information is granted. The mandate sent down by the ad hoc Chambers Justice James Zota to the court below restraining the enforcement of the Supreme Court’s mandate is hereby ordered lifted.
The Clerk of this Court is mandated to send an order to the Court below to put the informants in possession of their property as per the previous Supreme Court’s mandate and to evict the respondents and all others in privy with them from the informants’ property. The court below is to give effect to this mandate. Costs ruled against the respondents. And IT IS HEREBY SO ORDERED.