The Director of the Ghana School of Law, Yaw D. Oppong, has argued that the natives of a land should not be given a limitation on the number of years that they can acquire and hold on to a parcel of stool land.

This he says is due to their immutable rights as a result of they being members of that particular tribe or ethnic community.

He explained that his argument is based on the fact that the ancestor of the person seeking to acquire a parcel of stool land may have been part of the group that either fought to acquire or had settled first on the land.

Speaking on JoyNews’ The Law, on Sunday, he noted that the only people that deserve to be given a limitation of years on how long they can hold on to a parcel of stool land are non-indigenes of that ethnic community or tribe.

The longest period a non-indigene may hold on to a parcel of stool land is 99 years.

“I have argued that it is only stool lands that are acquired by non-subjects of the stool, that the Constitution has precluded.

“I have spent quite substantial time trying to convince myself and others who read it that for me in my reading, the limitation on the number of years that one can acquire for a stool land is only applicable to non-subjects.

“And thus subjects since they have inalienable rights because their ancestors may have been part of those who fought, or those who made contribution to acquire it and vested it into the stool, then it will be incongruous to say that 'I being a descendant of that ancestor can only have a leasehold or an interest which is less than the freehold',” he said.