37 days
That's how much notice you will have to give of a public gathering under the draft Public Assemblies Parades and Protests Bill. The intention of the DUP Sinn Fein working party might have been to establish equality between Orangemen and residents groups by treating protests in the same manner as parades. However this will now mean that rallies involving pensioners, trade unionists and other concerned citizens will be brought into the ambit of the legislation.
Arguing that the bill would have criminalised the Whitehouse school parents who protested recently at Stormont or the Quinn insurance workers who held ralles in Fermanagh, the SDLP's Conall McDevitt has labelled the proposals "Stalinist". Mr McDevitt has tabled a motion at Stormont asserting that the bill, as it stands, is incompatible with international human rights standards.
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