The Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland is engaged in a wide ranging
consultation process within the organisation on the Review
of the Parades Commission by Sir George Quigley.
The Orange Institution has been at the forefront of the campaign
to replace the discredited Parades Commission with a process
that protects fundamental human rights and provides an open
and transparent process.
Grand Lodge has welcomed the Review's implicit findings that
the Parades Commission has failed. We take no pleasure in
having been proved correct in our assessment of the Commission.
To enable others to eventually reach this logical conclusion
has meant that human rights in Northern Ireland have suffered
over the last number of years.
The principled stand and sound judgement of Grand Lodge (whilst
others wavered) has been vindicated.
It is essential that everyone learns the lessons of history.
The Parades Commission must be replaced and we would welcome
its immediate removal. However we cannot afford to have it
replaced simply for the sake of its removal without a viable
and just process in its stead.
That is why it is so important that the Orange Order with
the other Loyal Orders take the opportunity to comment on
the proposals contained in Sir George Quigley's Review and
to do all we can to get Government to listen to our views
so that further mistakes are not made in such an important
issue.
|
