AN advisory commission or tribunal and a system of "planning permission" for parades are among a number of approaches suggested in a report aimed at helping to resolve the disputes over the growing number of parades in Northern Ireland.
The independent report by the Centre for the Study of Conflict, attached to the University of Ulster at Coleraine, comments that the sheer number of parades there were 3,500 in 1995 causes resentment among sections of both the Catholic and Protestant communities.
It says that those parades which are disputed have serious consequences for community relations and it emphasises the need for greater responsibility from parade organisers.
The report notes that little or no progress towards resolving the parades issue has been made since last year if anything, positions have hardened. "The problem of contested parades will not go away simply by ignoring it" the authors, Neil Jarman and Dominic Bryan, remark in their preface.
The history of Northern Ireland over the past 200 years is littered with incidents of civil disturbances connected with parades, the report says. Since 1985 the number of parades has shown an increase of more than 32 per cent, with loyalist parades increasing by 34 per cent and republican parades by 16 per cent.
Of the 1995 parades, 2,574 were loyalist, 285 were nationalist, 617 were categorised by the RUC as "other" and 24 as "illegal". Although the number of disputed parades is small, the effect of those disputes on community relations had been significant.
The report suggests that an advisory commission could be established in the short term to develop a set of principles under which political expression in Northern Ireland could take place.
A parades tribunal of some sort could also be considered, to act as a watchdog or arbitrator on particular disputes. However, the report adds "The idea of an independent tribunal has received no support from unionist politicians, but they have offered little in the way of alternatives."
The report also discusses the longer term advantages of a system of parade planning permission, under which all applications would be made months in advance and adjudication would be made on those which are contested.
The report suggests that everyone should have the right to parade "as an expression of his or her cultural identity". But that right had to be balanced by the rights of residents of areas through which proposed parades might pass and organisers should be held accountable for "the totality" of what takes place.
Regarding parade behaviour, the report suggests better liaison with local community groups better control of sectarian music and chanting improved controls on displays of sectarian symbols the possibility that flags may be furled or music stopped in some areas and the avoidance of Catholic churches on parade routes.
The authors say "The longer term aim should not be to prevent parades, but rather to encourage a political environment where civil rights are respected and political expression can take place without threatening or inconveniencing the lives of others."
Commenting on the report, the Deputy Chief Constable of the RUC, Mr Ronnie Flanagan, said that local agreement was the best way of solving problems over disputed parades. "All this talk of a commission and all these other suggestions would fade if there were local accommodations, if people respected each other's culture", he said.
The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, welcomed the report and said it could play a constructive role in furthering discussion.
People and organisations "had the right to express their culture and identity and Sinn Fein had consistently defended the right of the Orange Order to march", he said in a statement.
However, local communities who resented "triumphalist coat trailing exercises" through their areas, and who felt threatened and intimidated, had to have an equal right to object if they felt that such parades were offensive and abusive and were "being used as a demonstration of supremacy by one section of people over another".