Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220
- 234)
WEDNESDAY 31 MARCH 2004
SIR ANTHONY
HOLLAND, THE
REV ROY
MAGEE, MR
PETER OSBORNE,
SIR JOHN
PRINGLE, MR
JOHN COUSINS,
MR PETER
QUINN AND
MR ANDREW
ELLIOTT
Q220 Mr Bailey: My next question
was basically would you like the power to be directly involved
in mediation? I would surmise from the comments that have been
made that you would say no to that. Maybe you would like to qualify
that. If your power were to be enhanced, what safeguards do you
think would be needed to ensure that determinations were not coloured
or, in your words, contaminated by the mediation process?
Sir Anthony Holland: As I said
earlier, I think greater resources will help us to develop the
authorised officer route, because that is the route I see in which
we can facilitate mediation. What we cannot do is actually say
we are going to try and mediate this particular problem at this
point, because to do so would actually make the process challengeable
in the courts.
Q221 Mr Tynan: No-one underestimates
the difficulties and pressures you face from time to time, especially
during the run-up to the parades in Northern Ireland. Quigley
suggests that both parades and protests might be notified earlier
than at present, to allow more time for focused efforts of mediation.
Would you welcome an extended notification period, and if you
do, what difference would it make in practical terms?
Sir Anthony Holland: The Commission's
view is that early notification does not actually help us at all
because, first of all, the situation can change both in terms
of the locality and generally across the whole of Northern Ireland.
So coming to a preliminary view, as is being suggested, based
on an early application would be tricky. You have introduced,
I think, the idea of actually linking areas and having preliminary
views, which was tried by the very first Commission, and certainly
it is an area that we want to explore. We still think there is
the germ of some good ideas there, and indeed, in the packs that
we have handed you, this will be referred to. We are also going
to send you, when we have finished today, some other ideas that
we have, but we wanted to first of all find out from yourselves
whether we had to address that in a particular context, rather
than do it today. So we will send you some ideas that we have
as to where we can make improvements. But making people apply
early, particularly up to a great length of time like five years,
looking at it from the outside, personally, I do not think is
a good idea.
Q222 Mr Tynan: I understood it was
from October to December, and there have been objections to that,
but obviously—I do not know whether you would agree—there
are pressures, with a short time span as regards taking decisions
and mediation. Would the pressure not be reduced if you had a
longer period in which to deal with that?
Sir Anthony Holland: It could
be reduced, yes.
Mr Osborne: I think, in a way,
it is an issue that is slightly distracting from the main point
and the main point is that at the moment work goes on to try to
resolve issues in the closed season. There perhaps could be more
work, and maybe more facilitation. There certainly could be more
work done on the ground by those people who are most affected
by the parades. There is work that does go on at the moment. I
am not sure that when the application goes in will affect that.
I certainly would not want people to think there is not work currently
happening and has not been happening for a number of years. It
has been, largely by people other than in the Parades Commission,
because other people are most directly affected by the parades.
Sir Anthony Holland: Of course,
I should finally add, the AOs during the winter are giving us
very full briefs. I have a pack that thick of the perception
during the winter arrived at by the AOs of what they think will
happen in the summer. I think all the Commission have these packs,
and we all refer to them constantly. As far as I am concerned,
it is my bible throughout the whole of the summer, seeing what
their views were in the winter and how things have developed since
then.
Q223 Mr Swire: To use a topical phrase
around here, you have shot my fox on my second question, which
was about groups of parades. I do want to ask you about proportionality.
A number of the parading organisations have maintained that once
they have accepted the conditions, in subsequent years there has
been no relaxing of the conditions as a result of that, and indeed,
the goalposts have been moved sometimes thereafter. What circumstances
would lead you to increase the conditions on a parade in spite
of paraders' good behaviour, first, and secondly, do you start
each year from first principles or are the determinations of earlier
years used as a template?
Sir Anthony Holland: I cannot
recall offhand whether we have increased conditions or made it
more onerous for a parade organiser in a following year. I just
cannot think of an instance where we have done that. We obviously
know what we decided the previous year.
Q224 Mr Swire: Can I give you an
example, which the Ulster Unionist Party raised, which was the
Drumcree 7 July parade. They believe that the policing there was
disproportionate, given that the smaller weekly processions, which
took place with minimal police presence, passed without infringement
of the conditions imposed by the Parades Commission.
Sir Anthony Holland: If I can
just deal with the Drumcree issue, when we were first appointed,
plainly that was the march or parade that had most impact on our
thinking, and we did produce the very first determination that
we made for the July parade, a great detailed determination, which
set out what we saw as the right way forward to resolve this.
Thereafter, that was not met very receptively by the parade organiser
but each week an application was put in on exactly the same grounds,
exactly the same format, that we would then be faced with. I have
read in the evidence of others that in fact we have issued 300
determinations unchanged. That again, with respect, is just not
true. You would have to read through all 300 determinations to
see the differences, but we have from time to time, when situations
have changed, altered the wording, there have been ups and downs
when we thought there might be changes, and we have certainly
indicated, particularly lately, in our determinations that there
is a sign of progress. We have to judge each individual notification
of a parade on its merits. We must look at each one on its own,
and we cannot say "usual decision". It does not work
like that. We have to look at each one individually, the individual
police report, the individual evidence we have had from the authorised
officers, who we call in to ask if they want to add anything to
the previous information they have given us. It is not a question
of just churning out determinations.
Q225 Chairman: As to moving the goalposts,
it is our friend Mr Kelly again, and you say you have seen his
evidence.
Sir Anthony Holland: Yes, I have
seen all the evidence, yes, sir.
Q226 Chairman: And in his answer
to my question 87, he said it was one of his member bands at Maghera
which got a determination and that was adhered to and then the
next year, the same application, the same parade, the same route,
there were further conditions and determinations in that year,
and then this last year, the same thing, all the conditions, it
ran without incident, there were no complaints, and he says at
the end, "We don't know where we are or how to police them".
Sir Anthony Holland: Putting aside
the issue of bands, and I will come to the instances, it is an
interesting thing. We can be faced with an application, a notification
of a band parade in a particular area and we will then obviously
ask the authorised officers what happened the previous year. When
we are told what happened in the previous year, we then debate,
"Do we actually want to draw attention to it in the form
of a letter?", which is by far the preferred means rather
than trying to identify it in a determination because if we do
that, and the evidence is perhaps not as firm as we would have
wished or we are not sure of something, it becomes actually unattractive
conduct, I think, on our part. We try to make sure, therefore,
that we do it by letter and if the evidence is pretty overwhelming
from what we have received, then yes, we will put in a determination
which in fact imposes a greater condition. Bands generally are
an area we have always been, and remain, concerned about. There
are some bands which actually behave impeccably and are a credit
to their organisation. There are some bands which do behave in
a way which does not do anyone any credit. We all know that. I
think even those who support parading in all its ways do realise
that some bands do behave badly. The difficulty from our point
of view is that there is no registration system of bands. Even
if there was, they can change their format, they can change their
make-up and it is a very difficult issue upon which we are currently
working with the police to see if we can come to some conclusions.
Mr Quinn: Maghera would be an
area I know a bit better than some of the others. The Ulster Bands
Association did come into us and, by the way, they came into us
after the date on which they said they had had no further contact
with us because I chaired the meeting and it was significantly
after that; in fact they came into us twice on that particular
Maghera band parade. What happened was that there was very poor
behaviour by the participants in one year, including entering
a shop and attacking an individual within private property. As
a result of that, the Commission did lay down more stringent regulations
the following year. The community relations position in that area
had deteriorated partly as a result of that attack and that also
contributed to our changed determination. However, the following
year after the parade organiser and the Ulster Bands Association
came in and talked to us and gave us commitments and the behaviour
was still far from perfect, nevertheless, after the date, we relaxed
that and it did not escalate. Therefore, after that one instance
in the circumstances in which we did tighten up the regulations,
that can be explained on the basis of poor behaviour, but subsequently
it was not tightened up and their behaviour did improve and that
is the basis on which we decided not to tighten up the regulations.
Chairman: Thank you, that is good to
have that on the record.
Q227 Mr Luke: Just building on that
answer, what type of actual feedback do you get from improved
bands on the ground and is there the facility, on receipt of that
feedback, to discuss with an offending band their actual performance
so that can be monitored into the mediation and the determination
process in future years?
Mr Quinn: Well, we have monitors
certainly at many of the contentious parades. We do not have monitors
at all of the parades because that would—
Q228 Mr Luke: Are these independent
monitors?
Mr Quinn: Independent monitors,
absolutely, independent monitors who provide us with written reports,
and we also get police reports, so we get two sources of information,
plus we get, which is not quite so independent because they interact
with us all the time, we get the reports from the authorised officers,
so we get up to three different sources of reports on every contentious
parade. The monitoring of the parades by these independent people,
when next we deal with them on a parade in that location, we feed
back to them what the monitors have said. Now, there has been
a request that they get the monitors' report, but we have a concern
about that because it might endanger the safety of the monitors
and, therefore, we have not so far given them copies of the reports.
We most certainly have sent back to them the fact that bad behaviour
was reported to us and it is up to them to decide which of the
three sources, whether it was the police or the AOs or the monitors,
but sometimes when they come in and talk to us, we actually tell
them who it was, not who specifically, but which of the three
entities provided us with the information as to the bad behaviour,
and we do take that into account. In addition to that, on the
basis of the monitors' reports, the police reports and sometimes
reports from our own AOs, we also feed back to the organisers
and to the bands, and we have only been doing this for the past
two years, in the first year we did not do this, but we feed back
to them the information that they have behaved badly and that
will be taken into account in the next determination in which
they are involved.
Sir Anthony Holland: I should
add that when we deal with these determinations, obviously we
have hearings and the reason that you will have read somewhere
that in fact they have 20 minutes is because there are so many
people coming in. If you are dealing, say, with 30 determinations
and everybody wants to have half an hour, you can imagine that
in fact if you have got five or six parties for each one you will
be there all day because they have to be done that day. We, therefore,
tend to limit it to 20 minutes for each person who comes in. We
hear from local people, we hear from politicians, we hear from
the police and from the AOs. Each person has strictly the same
time limit so that there is no unfairness given. If we did not
have a strict time limit, as I say, we have found that we just
would not get through the work.
Mr Osborne: But beyond that we
will also meet with people outside of Commission meetings at their
request or sometimes our request, going down to their area as
well and in the evenings as well, if that is what they want, in
order to discuss things further in a more informal atmosphere.
Q229 Mr Luke: Is the feedback relayed
quite quickly, say, if there is a parade for the next year, and
would you try and get hold of that band?
Mr Quinn: It probably is not as
quick as we would have liked and we have accelerated it over the
last number of months, the second half of last year and the early
months of this year when there have been a small number of parades.
It has accelerated, but we would accept that it needs to accelerate
more and we have now put in a system whereby there will be quite
fast feedback to every parade organiser where there is bad behaviour
and to every band which has been involved in bad behaviour.
Mr Cousins: We do not put the
letters in the form of a conviction, for want of a better word.
The letter tends to say to the organiser, "It has been reported
to us that this happened. Do you agree?" Then they can come
back with an explanation that it was not them, it did not happen
and that is fine by us, so we do not form a view just on the different
streams of information we are getting. We accept that the organiser
has a point of view as well and if they want to communicate with
us, then they can do so.
Q230 Mark Tami: At the end of your
submission you say that you are arguably more aware than most
of where change can best be made to further the resolution of
conflict. Can you elaborate a bit more on that and say what changes
you would actually like to see and what is your justification
for seeking those changes?
Sir Anthony Holland: Well, given
the pressure on time, what we were going to do actually is to
send you a paper, headed, "Scope for Change". The particular
items identified, which is certainly an area which I know is a
problem because we do not cover static protests, are: linkage,
which we have already touched on briefly where we would actually
like to see some change; the facilitation of mediation, and we
have talked about that, but I think I need to have it spelled
out in great detail because it is such a dangerous subject when
you are actually arbitrating about a human right; confidentiality
and transparency; the code of conduct; and registration of bands.
Those are the main areas where we think there is scope for change
where we believe that if various changes are put in place, it
would help, but I think it is better if that is put in a written
document.
Q231 Mark Tami: Have you discussed
this with the Northern Ireland Office and what sort of reaction
have you had?
Sir Anthony Holland: No, no, we
are independent of the Northern Ireland Office. These are our
views, as the Commission, and I want to emphasise that.
Q232 Mark Tami: So you have not put
anything forward, as such?
Sir Anthony Holland: One of the
things we are obliged to do under the Act is in fact to deal with
the Northern Ireland Office about improvements and changes, but
frankly, given what is going on all the time with these reviews
and interviews and so on and meetings, we have never actually
thought it is the right time to stop and pause and do this. We
have done one important thing. We thought the 11/1, which is the
form which notified the parade, was not as well designed as it
could be and we have redesigned it in conjunction with the police.
So far as we are concerned, we think that this year this new 11/1
will lead to a great improvement upon the way in which the notifications
are made to the Commission and also the way in which it is perceived
by those people who have to complete them as being a much more
user-friendly form. That sounds quite small, but it is actually
quite a major improvement from our point of view.
Q233 Mark Tami: So how do you intend
to get these areas out into the wider world?
Sir Anthony Holland: We made the
suggestions which I have just identified to you to the Quigley
Review and obviously not all were taken on board. Some were and
there are some of the things which we have taken from the Quigley
Review which we have actually put in place. It is an ongoing process.
When we have submitted to you, after this meeting, what our own
views are about scope for change, we intend to take those forward
in any event because we do feel that they actually are necessary,
but then again we may be faced with a situation, as has been the
case up to now where of course the Quigley Review consultation
process is still going on and the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee
is still considering this, where there is a great reluctance actually
to anticipate sometimes those kinds of results.
Q234 Chairman: Well, I think it would
be very helpful indeed, Sir Anthony, to receive that and I have
no doubt that the Committee will wish to give you their views
in return as a result of the work that we have done. That brings
us to the end of the questions we have for you, so unless you
have got anything specific more for us, thank you very much indeed
for coming and helping us with our inquiry.
Sir Anthony Holland: In the pack
you will also see that I have made a specific statement about
an ancillary question which came out of the earlier evidence which
I do not want to go into today, but you will see it in your pack
and you will realise why I have said it in the way that I have
presented it to you.
Chairman: Thank you very much; that will
be very useful.
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