TNAG-0232-FCO40-268-Legislation-relating-to-registration-of-trade-unions-in-Hong-1970 — Page 164

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In addition, the police have in Hong Kong wider powers under the

Public Order Ordinance than they have in the United Kingdom.

The Commissioner of Police may prohibit the holding of a public

gathering "if it appears to him necessary to do so in the interest of

public order. Note that he does not have to have reasonable grounds: it is

enough that he thinks it necessary. So he can ban nurses from marching up

Garden Road in support of their pay claim one Sunday but the very next

Sunday permit a procession of St. John Ambulance men to go via the same

route. (A public gathering, by the way, consists of ten or more persons.)

Any police officer of the rank of inspector or above can call on any

(non-religious) public gathering to disperse if he reasonably believes a

breach of the peace likely. For the same reason he can also break up any

meeting on private premises.

Finally, whenever 3 or more are assembled together and conduct

themselves in a "disorderly, intimidating, insulting or provocative manner,"

giving rise to a reasonable fear of a breach of the peace, then they

constitute an unlawful assembly. The maximum penalty is 5 years. This

provision allows genuine pickets to be put at grave risk by professional

agitators who infiltrate the picket line.

Proposals for change

At this stage of Hong Kong's progress we need a law which puts the

right to strike beyond doubt and which permits peaceful picketing without

so many qualifications that in practice police intervention can always be

justified. We have not got such a law at the moment. What we have got is

a situation in which employers and businessmen dominate the legislature and

the bodies exercising influence in the Colony; in which many firms refuse to

negotiate with unions; and in which the police appear very ready to prohibit

or break up any gathering of workers expressing common grievances.

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