TNAG-0232-FCO40-268-Legislation-relating-to-registration-of-trade-unions-in-Hong-1970 — Page 162

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If the manner of the picketing ceases to be peaceful or becomes an

obstruction or a nuisance it falls outside the protection of section 46.

So also if public order is endangered or the picketing is carried out in

such numbers that it is likely to intimidate other people or obstruct

them, it will be unlawful. The reason is that the courts will draw the

inference that the picketing was not merely for the purposes of peaceful

persuasion, for which non-obstructive methods and few persons are all that

is necessary, but was also for the purpose of intimidation or a show of

solidarity.

These rules severely limit the right to picket. Citrine, the leading

authority on trade union law, has written: "Thus, if a picket commits a

private muisance, as by violently or continually banging on the door,

shouting, obstructing ingress or egress, or otherwise seriously interfering

with the enjoyment of the house, or if he commits a public nuisance such as

behaving in a manner calculated to cause a breach of the peace, or unreasonably

obstructing the highway, his common law right to picket and his right to

'attend' under the section will cease

Any show or threat of violence

...

...

Pickets are

to

will render picketing unlawful, and may make it criminal.

therefore not entitled, in order to compel people to listen to them,

obstruct them by deliberately standing in their way or catching hold of

their arms. Nor are they entitled to obstruct the passage of vehicles

Neither may they continue to pester, i.e., 'molest', those persons who do

not wish to listen to them and who have requested them to desist."

So it may

be seen that even if in Hong Kong we simply had the

English law we would have a situation in which the right to picket had to

be exercised with great caution. The Great Eastern pickets would still have

broken the law. The English law is unsatisfactory for it is sufficiently

vague and ill-defined to permit the police readily to find an excuse for

A constable interference. Just one point here is the question of numbers.

could easily persuade a court that he had reasonable grounds for thinking

that the number of pickets involved was more than was reasonably necessary.

.....

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