Contemporary Constitutional Issues in our Multiparty Democracy caused by the young lawyer, but by his senior. He was also smart enough to know that learning, to be effective, is not pushed down the throats of students of the law with terrorist gusto. The antepenultimate comment I would make about the Re Akoto Case is the activism, bravery and resilience of the lawyers for the applicants in this case. As you all know, J. B. Danquah fought the wrongful detention cases under the Preventive Detention Act consistently and with all his might until he was detained under that Act and unfortunately died in Prison. That spirit of service to humankind, with a broader view of assisting to build a strong and free society in which no human being will suffer injustice has almost left the legal fraternity in Ghana. Today, raising issues bordering on patent human rights abuses at the Ghana Bar Association(GBA) Conference is near impossible as the Bar is deeply divided along petty political lines. It is alright for members of the GBA to do politics, even if it is to maintain their positions in State Boards and maintain a stream of very well paid government jobs from the sitting government. It is not alright for the GBA, historically noted for fighting against injustices and oppression during the years of dictatorial rule, to not only shut its eyes and ears to injustices during constitutional democratic rule, but also shut up anyone who attempts to raise those issues. The penultimate comment I would like to make about the Re Akoto Case is about the subsisting burden of that case. The burden of Re Akoto, which the legal community still carries, is simply that the case exemplifies the harm which a narrow and doctrinaire approach to the interpretation of a Constitution can wreak. It is that type of interpretation which was decried in Tuffour v. Attorney-General. 2 The ghost of Re Akoto still haunts the legal community and as if to placate it and keep it at bay, we have instituted the Re Akoto Memorial Lectures. A more fitting memorial to Re Akoto, in my view, would be a process of ensuring that the keen desire of lawyers and judges to shut the gates of justice through the use of really childish legal technicalities and sophistry will be replaced by the spirit and conscience which informed J. B. Danquah ' s submissions in the Re Akoto case. This is the only way we can ensure that dry legal technicalities, raw procedural hitches, morbid narrow mindedness and rough political expediency do not triumph over commonsense, reasonableness and the true freedom and justice we all yearn for in this country. If we meant for justice to be administered according to the horrible laws that make up the Rule of Law in Ghana and without a fair deal of sophistication, we would not carefully select lawyers of a certain standing and calibre to occupy our seats of justice. 2 Tuffour v. Attorney-General[1980] G.L.R. 637, C.A(Court of Appeal) sitting as S.C(Supreme Court). 9