Former Prime Minister, P.J. Patterson, says that though he is advocating for a new constitutional model, the change cannot be rushed.<\/p>\n
Jamaica\u2019s present Constitution was approved by the United Kingdom and is fundamentally linked to the Westminster model \u2013 the British parliamentary system of government.<\/p>\n
Mr Patterson states that it is time to move towards a new model better suited to Jamaica, adding that the present Constitution divides the nation and keeps citizens in permanent rivalry, as if they were hostile tribes.<\/p>\n
However, he notes that shifting the constitutional model should be thorough and only undertaken when Jamaicans become truly aware of who they are.<\/p>\n
Mr. Patterson says he hopes the younger generation will be audacious enough to fight for the constitutional change needed.<\/p>\n
Mr. Patterson was delivering the Norman Manley Distinguished Lecture in Kingston on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
His lecture was entitled \u201cConstitutional Renewal, Caribbean Integration and the Rule of Law: Charting the Region\u2019s Next Chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Prime Minister, P.J. Patterson, says that though he is advocating for a new constitutional model, the change…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-512475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}