Civil rights campaigners have scored a significant victory in scuppering a DUP/Sinn Fein plan to severely curtail the ability of workers’ and community organisations to fight job losses and spending cuts.

A proposal demanding 37-days notice of any outdoor rally of more than 50 people has been abandoned.

The measure would have had huge implications for anti-racism and anti-war campaigns, as well as for unions and community groups.

The change was announced by Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness on August 12th.

By releasing the news on the day of the Apprentice Boys’ marches, they may have hoped to keep the climb-down as low-key as possible.

Flawed

Plans for dealing with contentious parades still stand, and are still deeply flawed.

But the removal of restrictions on meetings is a noteworthy success.

The draft Parades Bill was drawn up by three DUP and three SF Members of the Assembly, following talks, at Hillsborough Castle in February, on devolution of policing.
The group was mandated to devise a replacement for the Parades Commission which the Orange Order wanted abolished as part of the policing deal.
But the bill the MLAs came up with amounted to a wide-ranging attack on the right to organise.
The 37-day requirement would have outlawed the protests of the Visteon workers last year, demonstrations against the assault on Gaza in December 2008, solidarity rallies following attacks on Roma in Belfast and so on and on.

PSNI Powers
Any member of the PSNI would have had the power to arrest, without warrant, anybody suspected of being in breach of the measure.
Penalties were set at £5,000 fines and/or six months imprisonment
The proposals were condemned by the Human Rights Commission, the ICTU, the Anti-Poverty Network, residents’ organisations and many others.
It was made clear that the law would be defied if the DUP and SF went ahead.

People Before Profit announced a protest march on October 5th, along the route in Derry of the October 5th 1968 march which detonated the original civil rights movement.
In off-the-record talks, the coalition parties offered to shorten the 37-day period and raise the size of meetings affected from 50 to 500.
When they were let know that this wouldn’t wash, they gave up on this section of the bill.
The parades aspect remains to be settled.
Apart from abolishing the Commission to satisfy the Orange Order, the bill still does nothing to ease problems arising from annuals displays of sectarianism.
This fight is not over yet.