No absolute right to march
High-profile solicitors and legal experts joined over 130 people on
the Lower Ormeau Road last weekend for the last of a series of four
conferences aimed at giving a nationalist response to sectarian
parades and the workings of the Parades Commission. An Phoblacht's
Caítlin Doherty was there.
``There is no absolute right to march''. Despite being from different
backgrounds, the conclusions of the panelists at this conference, held
under the banner ``Marching and Sectarianism - Rights and
Responsibilities'', were similar.
After a formal opening by Sinn Féin Deputy Mayor Marie Moore, Ciaran
Harvey, a Belfast-based lawyer, outlined how the European Convention
for Human Rights provides for the right to freedom of assembly and
association. ``However, a number of conditions have to be respected,''
he added. Such conditions are that public safety, health and ``rights
and freedoms of others'' are protected. Harvey also stressed that, ``as
a political animal, the European Union is reluctant to act against
individual states''.
John Gormley from the Lower Ormeau Concerned Community said that ``no
rights are absolute. Any rights are balanced and circumscribed by
other rights.''
Talking about the Ormeau Road, he said ``the community is mature enough
to decide for itself how it wishes to implement its rights to freedom
of expression and assembly. It neither wants to spend its time
marching, nor protesting.
``Our freedom of expression consists of living our daily lives without
suffering sectarian abuse and provocation from a crowd of bigots.
``Our freedom of assembly consists of going about our lives without
being constrained, harassed and imprisoned by the RUC acting as a
private militia for the loyal orders''.
The whole question of marching has to be redefined in the context of
the new political arrangements, he said. ``If the Good
Friday Agreement is to succeed, it must enable us to leave behind the
type of society that gave rise to an unfettered right to march by
organisations that are blatantly sectarian.''
Ed Lynch of the American Bar Association challenged the common vision
that ``the American Constitution allows the Orange Order to march down
the Garvaghy Road or the Lower Ormeau''. ``In 29 years of practise, I
have yet to read in our Bill of Rights that there is a right to
march''. He also said the 4th amendment to the US constitution stresses
that ``rights of the people to be secure in their persons, homes and
effects shall not be abridged''. Every ethnic group in America had a
parade, ``but those parades go where they are welcomed''.
The conclusions of this vast consultation process will be published in
the New Year.
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