Throughout this month’s racist violence in Northern Ireland, many statements of condemnation from politicians, the police and civic groups have opened with the words “everyone has the right to protest”. The same incantation is increasingly heard across Britain and Ireland as the authorities wrestle with street politics on immigration and the war in Gaza.
The phrase may be well-intentioned but it is starting to sound like an excuse for tolerating constant disruption. It seems to declare that protest must be indulged, up to the point where it involves crime or triggers a riot.
Few people seem aware that Northern Ireland has pioneered a middle way: regulation via an independent commission. This is overlooked because it regulates only protests against parades and its success has kept those demonstrations out of the headlines for years. But its lessons apply to protests in general and could be adopted more widely.
Northern Ireland’s parading legislation, the Public Processions Act 1998, was written by Tony Blair’s government in response to the Drumcree crisis. Labour ministers were anxious not to infringe the right to protest, so they took the approach of the Tyrannosaurus Rex in Jurassic Park: they saw only things that moved.
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A distinction was contrived between static demonstrations, which remain unregulated, and “any procession in a public place”. The distinction required an exception, however. Unionists believed the parading problem was caused by residents’ counter-demonstrations, which they accused Sinn Féin of organising with malign intent.
Any law that ignored this would be politically untenable. So, “protest meetings related to public processions” were included in the legislation. Because a regulated parade can be about anything except a funeral, a counter-protest can also be about anything. So the principle of general regulation of protests has been conceded.
Following amendments to the law in 2005, regulation of parade-related protests is essentially the same as for parades. Organisers must notify the police, who pass this to the Parades Commission for a determination. The commission cannot ban a protest – only the Northern Secretary can do so and only under the most serious circumstances. A determination may instead impose restrictions, such as limiting the duration or numbers present. Restrictions may be imposed only to prevent public disorder, property damage or “disruption to the life of the community”.
Republicans did not fully recognise policing until 2010 and dissidents still do not recognise it
The commission also publishes a code of conduct for parades and related protests. Among its stipulations are that participants should “avoid using words or behaviour which could reasonably be perceived as intentionally sectarian, provocative, threatening, abusive, insulting or lewd”. A history of breaking the code makes it more likely that restrictions will be imposed.
Breaking restrictions is a criminal offence, although not a serious one. The maximum penalty is six months imprisonment or a £5,000 fine. Police in Northern Ireland have long been able to impose restrictions on protests under public order legislation, so the innovation in the parading system is handing this task to an independent commission.
It has proved highly effective. A problem that persisted for two centuries is now considered solved, with no significant disorder around parades since 2015. Fostering peaceful protests has been taken for granted because parading is seen to be the problem and residents the beneficiary.
That is not always how protesters have seen it. Republicans did not fully recognise policing until 2010 and dissidents still do not recognise it, yet notification and prosecution goes through the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland). In some of the most fraught disputes there were rival protesters, typically a Sinn Féin-led and a dissident-led group, or factions within a group, each trying to up the ante amid accusation of Sinn Féin “going soft”.
Any suggestion of regulating protests in general still provokes horror
It took unionism over a decade to begrudgingly recognise the Parades Commission, and loyalists held violent protests against dissident republican parades. Despite all this, the system worked and everyone ultimately complied with it. The simplicity of filling in a short notification form and observing basic standards of behaviour, on pain of the real risk of a small fine, appears to have been all it took.
Lawyers and academics have confirmed the system’s compatibility with human rights law. The true reason it has attracted no condemnation or even much interest from the rights sector is that it is perceived to be mainly about reining in the Orange Order, for which there is little sympathy.
Any suggestion of regulating protests in general still provokes horror. A proposal from Belfast City Council to license amplifiers in the city centre, to reduce noise from preachers and buskers, has caused outrage among rights groups, trade unions and left-wing and nationalist parties.
Nobody is going to take their loudhailers away, let alone tell them how often they can holler on the street. If everyone stepped back and considered the mounting chaos in our public square, they might see the parading system has more to teach us, in Northern Ireland and beyond.
