A new blueprint for overseeing controversial parades in Northern Ireland hopes to avoid future violence by encouraging rival groups to talk to each other.
First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness unveiled proposals for a new system to replace the current Parades Commission.
The plans, including a new focus on encouraging dialogue, have been drawn-up under the terms of the Hillsborough Castle Agreement brokered to stabilise the power-sharing government at Stormont.
The existing government-appointed Parades Commission will be replaced by two groups, one to administer parade applications or objections and to facilitate talks, while a second adjudicating body will make rulings where agreement cannot be found.
The proposals, which will now be subject to a 12-week public consultation, were drawn-up by a working group made up of Democratic Unionist and Sinn Féin representatives. The plan proposes new legislation aimed at avoiding conflict over marches, with hopes the new era can begin early next year.
Mr Robinson said: “Following the agreement reached at Hillsborough Castle on February 5, we set a challenging timetable for the Working Group on Parades to produce a report. The group presented its report to us on February 23. Today we publish the draft legislation for public consultation.”
Mr McGuinness said: “A consultation process across a range of stakeholders including public representatives and representatives of
residents’ groups has informed the report. We look forward to considering the comments and submissions received in response to the draft document in the coming months.”
Sinn Féin Assembly member John O’Dowd said: “Central to the legislation is a legally enforceable Code of Conduct for those who parade, and the bands and supporters who take part in Parades, and any hangers on.
“Both the Code of Conduct and the Draft Parades Bill include the right for communities and individuals to live free from sectarian harassment. For the first time in any legislation, the right to live free from sectarian harassment is enshrined, and a legal definition is put forward. The Loyal Orders will be legally bound by the Code of Conduct, as will any hangers on, supporters, and their bands.
“The Draft Bill places an emphasis on dialogue, formal and informal, between the loyal orders and objectors to the parades and those that raise concerns, and will provide a mechanism for mediation, if required. Dialogue will be the norm and it will be encouraged, with failure to engage taken into account in subsequent adjudications.”
The new system will cover all public assemblies, parades and protests involving more than 50 people.
The DUP’s Nelson McCausland said the proposals heralded a new era for parading. “It will replace the Parades Commission with a new framework that is fair and transparent and is based on human rights,” he said.
“The right of peaceful assembly, which includes the right to parade, is one of the most basic human rights in any democratic society and this is firmly enshrined in the new system.
“The new system will not pander to sectarian prejudice and no longer will there be preferential treatment for protests over parades.” Organisations such as the Orange Order have been highly critical of the Parades Commission and had demanded its removal.
Although marching groups have yet to comment on the new proposals, Mr McCausland, who is a member of the loyal orders that stage parades, said he believed the proposals would meet the concerns of groups such as the Orange Order.
Under the plans, marchers must apply for a parade 37 days in advance, with objectors obliged to file their concerns within seven days, while a further seven-day deadline will be put in place for permission to stage a protest against an event.
The administrative arm of the new system - the Office of Public Assemblies, Parades and Protests - will appoint professional mediators to encourage local dialogue to resolve marching disputes.
The First Minister and Deputy First Minister will select an appointments panel that will then put together an 11 member adjudication panel, to be called The Public Processions, Parades and Protests Body. The adjudication body will be representative of the community.
Parties can seek a judicial review of decisions, while the new proposals include plans for the power to ban a parade to be handed to the newly created office of Justice Minister.
But the minister will have to secure the backing of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister for such a move.
The most infamous and costly marching dispute has been the stand-off at Drumcree in Portadown, Co Armagh. At the height of the dispute, tens of thousands of Orange Order supporters gathered at the venue to be met by lines of barbed wire and ranks of armed police and troops after the Parades Commission rerouted the parade away from the nationalist Garvaghy Road.
PA