The SDLP leader Mr Mark Durkan has warned the British government against breaking up the Parades Commission as a concession to Ulster Unionists ahead of next week's ruling council meeting.
Mr Durkan said the recommendations of the Quigley report set up to report the commission were fundamentally damaging and would effectively dismantle it.
"To do something that would fracture the vital working way the Parades Commission has been able to oversee progress in a very difficult area would be an act of gratuitous political vandalism," he said.
The review team, chaired by a former Ulster Bank chairman Sir George Quigley, issued its report last year recommending that the Parades Commission should be divided into two separate bodies.
The SDLP leader said he feared that as the review had been offered as a political sop to unionists during negotiations at Western Park, the British government may be planning to make further concessions to help UUP leader Mr David Trimble.
Mr Trimble is facing pressure from hard-line members, led by Mr Jeffrey Donaldson to reject the joint declaration issued by the two governments last month.
Mr Durkan said he believed the government may wish to give the UUP leader something to wave in front of his followers when the 860-strong ruling council meets on Monday.
"We want to make sure that the circumstantial pressures of the moment don't influence the British government to do what they know to be wrong in terms of the parades issues itself," he said.
PA