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The recent petty wrangling by the Parades Commission over
how parade forms were filled in has again highlighted what
an embarrassing body the Commission is.
Last year, there were some very rare decisions coming out
of the Commission.
In Castlewellan, for example, there was a decision to allow
a Lodge to parade to church, but not walk back to their Orange
Hall along the same route.
In Belfast there were all sorts of crazy decisions that infringements
of determinations had taken place because bands started to
play a few yards away from where the Commission said. Oh yes,
and someone's mobile phone went off and played the Sash.
But just when we thought the Commission could not get any
more focused on farce, they've done it again!
This time the whole issue was over Box 2 on the 11/1 parade
form. Lodges argued that the officers organise parades and
filled in their names as opposed to just one person.
This was because in the past the PSNI, who go arm-in-arm
with the Commission over such matters, had used the name not
as a contact point but as someone to grill over supposed difficulties
on the particular Determination.
But the fact that more names than one had appeared in Box
2 caused enormous difficulties to the Commission. Forms were
returned, sergeants in police stations were becoming tetchy
(not with the real culprits, of course, but with Orange brethren),
and parades were being declared illegal.
Rather than focus on the real issue affecting Orange parades,
which is the lack of any accommodation from within the republican
and nationalist community towards our events, the Parades
Commission sought to indulge in bureaucratic wrangling over
how boxes were filled in on the form.
Yet the reality of the situation on the ground is that there
are people who are prepared to 'engage' (to coin a favoured
word with the Chief Constable) in throwing petrol bombs, bottles
and bricks at ordinary Protestant men, women and children
celebrating their culture.
The Parades Commission responds to that by wanting ordinary
decent people to 'engage' with those responsible for such
thuggery; presumably to allow them to throw insults instead
of bricks.
It was clear that, due to political pressure from representatives
of both Unionist parties, the government made plain that wrangling
over whether there was one or five names in a box as organiser
was a nonsense.
The Parades Commission, as a consequence, declared that it
would be 'flexible' over such matters in future.
The Orange Order said the climb down by the Parades Commission
had been 'humiliating'.
Brother Raymond Spiers, District Master of No. 6 District
in Belfast, claimed that the Commission had been sitting on
legal advice for weeks which said that the Orange Institution
had been completing 11/1 forms perfectly lawfully.
Whatever dubious thought process was involved inside the
discredited Parades Commission, this cannot be allowed to
be the end of the matter.
The Parades Commission is not part of any solution, but is
very much the problem, and there can be no confidence within
the majority of the population in Northern Ireland in relation
to it.
It is long overdue time that the Parades Commission, which
focuses in a narrow and, it must be contended, sectional way,
was replaced by a much wider body which would look at all
aspects of cultural expression.
The Orange Order is on public record as being committed to
work with others to achieve such a body which would bring
a positive focus to Northern Ireland's diverse cultures.
And we certainly don't need the pettiness and narrow-mindset
of the Parades Commission involved in any future developments.
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