Former Prime Minister Edward Seaga last night urged the current leadership of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) to complete the process he started to protect the rights of Jamaicans under the Charter of Rights.

Speaking for the first time on the election platform of the party he led for nearly three decades, and with his voice filled with the passion that characterised his leadership of the JLP over the period, Seaga urged the party to ensure that there is no need for Jamaicans to continue holding up placards in the streets crying out for justice.

“I am here to tell you that I am not happy with what has happened to it,” Seaga told thousands of Labourites gathered at Half-Way-Tree for what is expected to be their final major rally in the Corporate Area before Thursday’s general election.

“Too many things are going on that are wrong for the people,” Seaga told the cheering crowd.

He blamed the ineffectiveness of the Office of the Public Defender as a primary cause of the failure of the Charter since its inception in 2011.

“The public defender doesn’t have any money to prosecute, nor any rights. That is not what I intended. I wanted him to be able to prosecute anybody who takes away your rights, or threatens to take them away,” Seaga said.

“So, what is needed is a revision of the Act, to give (the public defender) the powers and the funding to take the decisions that are necessary,” Seaga stated.

“The next Government of this country after Thursday must look to that and strengthen that Charter,” he added.

After 16 years of debate inside and outside of Parliament, legislation for the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, which replaced Chapter III of the constitution, was approved under the JLP’s 2007-2011 Administration headed by former Prime Minister Bruce Golding.

— Balford Henry