NATIONALIST residents' groups have accused the parades commission of not granting their communities equal rights with Orange marchers and of ignoring the role of the RUC in policing parades.
The groups gave a cautious welcome to some aspects of the report but said that they needed more time to study it in detail.
Mr Breandan MacCionnaith of the Garvaghy Residents' Coalition said: "It recognises the right to march, with some qualification, but it doesn't give the same recognition to the rights of residents.
"The rights of marchers take absolute precedence.
The North commission had not addressed the RUC's religious and political make up or its behaviour last year, he said. "Thirty per cent of RUC officers are members of the Orange Order, the Apprentice Boys or the Black Perceptory. The report ignores that and the mass disaffection and virtual mutiny of the RUC at Drumcree last year.
"The RUC quite clearly cannot implement the law impartially, yet the report allows it to have the final say on the parades issue."
Mr MacCionnaith welcomed the commission's acknowledgment of the need for dialogue between marchers and residents. But he said the British government was refusing to even implement its limited recommendations because of its dependency on unionist votes at Westminster.
Mr Gerard Rice, of the Lower Ormeau Concerned Community group, said the report did not offer nationalist residents adequate protection.
"The rights of people not to be besieged in their own homes, not to have their streets saturated by the RUC, and to be able to go to the shops and live free from fear, intimidation and harassment have not been given equal recognition with the right to march," he said.
The Sinn Fein chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, said it was unfortunate that the panel would not have more power.
"The British Secretary of State and the RUC have the final say. They can overrule the commission's decision and, as we witnessed last July at Drumcree and across the North, this is a recipe for disaster."
He suggested the British government might use the report to deface public and international disquiet at its handling of events last summer.
The INLA's political wing, the Irish Republican Socialist Party, welcomed the idea of an independent panel to rule on parades but said it would have preferred an international input into the proposed body.