Although slavery was abolished in 1838, as a mark of continued colonial imperialism, the framers of the Jamaican Constitution (and other CCSs) have blindly preserved much of their colonial heritage. when Jamaica gained independence on August 6, 1962. Most notably, Jamaica retained the Westminster-style parliament (which dominates the CCR) and the Common Law legal system. Having been a reflection of their colonial masters, these CCR constitutional documents were in no way indigenous nor the product of sustained political discourse. In fact, history shows that there has been no ideological debate sparking a mobilization of ideas on the part of the people. Instead, they were the end product of rapid negotiations between the political elites of the colonies, with the approval of London-based technocrats (lawyers and politicians) concerned only with their own interests and those of the plantocratic establishment based in in the Caribbean. . There were no representatives of the masses vehemently expounding their views and interests; who seemed helpless and forgotten. Subsequently, by being prosaic in nature, “constitutionalism bequeathed us a heritage of restrictions and democratic traditions based on those of the United Kingdom”. However, the CCR Constitutions departed from the British model by including a written bill of rights. Chapter 3 of the Jamaican Constitution accordingly enshrines the protection of individual rights ensured by judicial review, thus enshrining constitutional supremacy over legislative and executive actions. History shows that it was Christopher Columbus and the Spanish who introduced the death penalty to Jamaica in 1496 and ensured that its application against the native Indians for very trivial crimes and...... middle of paper ......in the post-independence constitutions of the CCR. Although human rights standards evolve over time, the Jamaican Constitution, unlike the 1950 ECHR, is therefore not a "living instrument" and, as such, the judiciary is unable to create new space for democracy by breathing new life into the Constitution. It is worrying that the Bill of Rights founded in Chapter Three of the Jamaican Constitution was a reflection of the ECHR, the enactment of which followed the atrocities of the Second World War. This clearly demonstrates here how “pre-existing laws” were ineffective in articulating and protecting fundamental human rights. . This is, however, regrettable, given that the fundamental criterion that any constitution must “be capable of growing and developing over time to respond to new social, political and historical realities, often unimagined by its authors”; an unfortunate event [emphasis added].