Amendments No Cure For Parades Bill – RNU

national | crime and justice | press release Friday August 13, 2010 15:17 by RNU-PRO - Republican Network for Unity (RNU)

RNU Press Release

The REPUBLICAN NETWORK FOR UNITY (RNU) Cathaoirleach/Chairperson, DANNY MCBREARTY, has called for the proposed parades bill to be “Binned rather than Revised” because the misjudgments at the very heart of the proposed the measure run too deep to be papered over by a few corrective amendments as suggested by the language of the joint announcement by Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness.

The REPUBLICAN NETWORK FOR UNITY (RNU) Cathaoirleach/Chairperson, DANNY MCBREARTY, has called for the proposed parades bill to be “Binned rather than Revised” because the misjudgments at the very heart of the proposed the measure run too deep to be papered over by a few corrective amendments as suggested by the language of the joint announcement by Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness.

Mr. McBrearty said; ‘There were said to be 410 written submissions to the bill, with the overwhelming majority having been strongly critical. Indeed, few proposals have so united people in the Six Counties as has the Parades Bill and opposition to it. This bill was a mistake from the outset. The issues of Loyal Order parades routed through Nationalist areas were far too important to be thrown as a bargaining chip in a deal for a compromised Stormont justice ministry.

When the DUP demanded ‘product’ on contentious parades, it was not seeking mechanisms to give vulnerable residents equal or greater protection of rights to be free from sectarian harassment but a backdoor for Orange feet to march down roads where they had been blocked.

The hastily-agreed deal on parades was then compounded by a series of ill-conceived provisions such as across the board application to all public meetings including those with no cross-community implications, 37 day notice requirements effectively banning timely public protests, violations of civil rights of free expression or free assembly on a wide range of activities which never been problems until this bill created potential problems. Previous attempts to draw escape clauses sparked misguided efforts like the 3 day emergency exception which created an open invitation to arbitrary denial by declaring that all criteria have not been met.

Republicans and Nationalists also fear that the DUP-S/F partners who handpicked party Loyalists for the working group, will handpick a gerrymandered adjudications panels, which can make political deals to permit or block parades in accordance with wider party interests and agendas rather than make adjudications in which human rights of freedom from sectarian intrusion are protected. Now the DUP-S/F partners announce that they will cure these problems with a few as yet unspecified minor revisions and have Stormont Loyalists Gerry Kelly & Jeffrey Donaldson congratulate them on their willingness to do so.

Mr. McBrearty concluded; ‘The Republican Network for Unity question whether S/F will have the political maturity to admit that the proposed law is a mistake, or whether the party will persist in pretending to cover-up the mistake by ineffective amendments or by attacking those who point out their mistakes to them’.

STATEMENT ENDS