Seinye Lulu-Briggs Loses Suit To Stop Inquest Into Husband’s Death

……goes to another court to cancel the “Export Permit” granted Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs to take his father’s mortal remains out of Ghana to Nigeria

A High Court in Accra on Friday, February, 28, 2020 dismissed a certiorari application brought before it by Mrs. Seinye Lulu-Briggs to quash the orders of the Coroner for an inquest into the death of her husband, High Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs.

Today’s judgement is coming on the heels of the ruling by the same High Court on Tuesday, February, 25, 2020, declining Mrs. Seinye Lulu-Briggs’ application for an injunction to stop the Ghana Police and the Transition Funeral Home from releasing the mortal remains of her husband to the family, led by Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs, until her application to stop the inquest is determined.

The judge had declined Seinye’s application for an injunction and fixed today to hear her certiorari application to quash the orders of the Coroner for an inquest. The decline by the High Court to grant the application for an injunction, enabled the family, led by Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs to take custody of the corpse on that Tuesday, February, 25th.

Recall, that the same hour the Supreme Court in Ghana on the 11th of February, 2020, dismissed Seinye’s application to deny release of the mortal remains of the High Chief to his family by custom led by Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs, Mrs. Seinye Lulu-Briggs filed a motion for injunction in a High Court in Ghana where she had a pending certiorori application to quash the orders of the Coroner for an inquest into the death of High Chief O.B.Lulu-Briggs to begin. ln her applications, she claimed that the Coroner lacked the geographical jurisdiction to order for an inquest and that if the corpse was released before her application was heard, it would prejudice her case.

A Magistrate and Coroner had on September 6, 2019 ordered an inquest into the death of High Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs, saying: “With this additional information to the one that forms the basis of the police application, I have reasonable cause to believe that the deceased did not die a natural death and I therefore deem an inquest necessary and accordingly order for one to be done”.

Strangely, Seinye Lulu-Brigggs brought a certiorari application to a High Court to quash the orders of the Coroner for an inquest into the circumstances of her husband’s death. Her application was thrown out today, the second application thrown out within four days. The inquest as ordered by the Coroner therefore stands.

It is instructive that an inquest is not a criminal trial but an investigation into circumstances of death, where a Coroner has reasonable cause to believe that a death was violent, unnatural or the cause of death is not known. An inquest includes an autopsy but not limited to an autopsy. It is an investigation into the cause and circumstances of death.

All over the world, inquests are sometimes done long after burial, as was in the case of Lady Diana. The inquest as ordered by the Coroner in Accra, Ghana, does not in any way stop the burial of Late High Chief O.B.Lulu-Briggs.

However, Mrs. Seinye Lulu-Briggs has again, gone to another court in Accra, with an application, requesting the Ghana Attorney General to cancel the “Export Permit” granted Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs to take his father’s mortal remains out of Ghana to Nigeria.