What I want is <!--#if "AUTHENTICATED_USER.hasPermission(SomeObject, 'View')"--> <a href="<!--#var "SomeObject.absolute_url()"-->">Goto SomeObject</a> <!--#/if-->

How about: <!--#if expr="AUTHENTICATED_USER.has_role('requester')"--> <LI> <A HREF="Requester/index_html">Requester menu</A> <!--#/if--> Reading between the lines of your original post it sounds like this approach might work but require you to add more role definitions... --Rob