PLAINTIFF CANNOT RELY ON ADVERSARIAL CASE WEAKNESS

ACTIO POPULARIS – HE WHO CHALLENGES MUST PROOF

Para. 25: “Therefore, where a party asserts a fact, he must produce evidence to substantiate the claim. It is not sufficient simply to challenge a law or State policy or practice in the abstract (actio popularis) without demonstrating how the alleged victim is individually affected. The complaint must be sufficiently substantiated. See Aumeeruddy-Cziffra and Others v. Mauritius (Communication No. R.9/35) 9 April 1981 decided in the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights.”

— Osaghae v Nigeria (2017) – ECW/CCJ/JUD/03/17

CASE WHERE BURDEN WAS ON THE DEFENDANT

In Samson Ochonma v. Asirim Unosi (1965) NMLR 321 the facts are thus: The plaintiff in this case sued for a declaration of title to a piece of land, damages for trespass and an injunction. In his statement of claim, he pleaded that he was the owner of the land by right of inheritance, and the defendants admitted that he had at one time been the owner. The defendant in the statement of defence pleaded that the piece of land verged Red was the only piece of land which the defendant had ever obtained from the plaintiff, and that the plaintiff made an absolute grant of it in 1936. The parties were agreed that the transaction of 1936, whatever its nature, included the payment by the defendant, to the plaintiff of a sum of money which they both described as “kola.” The Federal Supreme Court per Brett JSC held that the defendant having admitted that the plaintiff was the original owner of the land, the onus was on him to establish his plea that there had been an absolute grant to him.

IMPORTANT POINTS ON BURDEN OF PROOF

In the case of Lewis & Peat (N.R.I.) Ltd. v Akhimien (1976) 10 NSCC 360 at 365. They are: (1) “Where there is no issue the question of burden of proof does not arise. (2) On the burden of proof on the pleadings: the rule is that the burden of proof rests on the party whether plaintiff or defendant who substantially asserts the affirmative of the issue in Joseph Constantine Steamship Line v. Imperial Smelting Corporation (1942) AC 154 at 174. (3) On the burden of adducing evidence: Used in this sense the burden of proof may shift depending on how the scale of evidence preponderates. Subject to the scale of evidence preponderating, the burden of proof rests squarely on the party who would fail if no evidence at all or no more evidence, as the case may be, were given, on either side. In other words, it again rests before evidence is taken by the court of trial on the party who asserts the affirmative of the issue …”