Preface

112
A judge shall on no account rely on facts within his personal knowledge and
base his judgment thereon. It is mandatory that judgment must be based on poof
proffered before him by witnesses and inferences drawn there from. See:
AJAGUNJEUN Vs. OSHO (1977)5 SC 89 at 103. It is trite law that the court
must decide a case on legal evidence adduced and where it fails to follow this
course, an Appeal Court will interfere. Tuhfatut Al-Hukkam, page 16 simply put it
that jurists are in concurrence that a judge should base his judgment upon what he
learnt from the witnesses. Imam Malik strictly forbids giving judgments not based
upon the evidence of witnesses.
The rule is therefore that the Cadi shall not give verdict on any matter before
him without listening to the entire claim and proof.
See page 119-120 of . Despite the obvious importance attached to evidence in any
given proceedings coupled with the facts that unlike in other cases where evidence
may be dispensed with at the instance of admission of claim by defendant in
inheritance cases evidence is indispensable in all circumstances. The instant case is
an inheritance one yet there is nothing on the record of proceedings to suggest that
the judgment of the court is grounded on evidence. In other words the whole
judgment is based on personal knowledge of the Cadi which he gathered from the
parties and this is a clear violation of Rule 97 and several textual authorities cited
above. I therefore resolve this issue in the negative i.e. the judgment failed to
comply with basic and necessary requirements of law and Sharia.