Striking dockers, unionists won't be removed - yet
Court grants continued camping outside Cheung Kong before hearing on permanent injunction
Striking dockers and unionists are allowed to continue camping outside the Cheung Kong Center in Central until a formal hearing on a permanent injunction against them is heard around July, the court ruled yesterday.
The decision came just hours before the Kwai Tsing port workers accepted a 9.8 per cent pay rise offered by four dock contractors and announced an end to their 40-day walkout.
An interim injunction will continue to bar them from entering the flagship building of Cheung Kong, the corporate empire of Li Ka-shing.
The Court of First Instance also told them to remove temporary structures they had set up on a walkway along Queen's Road Central near steps leading to the upper ground floor. Mr Justice Godfrey Lam Wan-ho said the public path was narrow and pedestrian traffic tended to be busy.
The judge acknowledged the strikers' activities were bound to inconvenience the public, but there was no suggestion that other people could not go about their lawful business because of that.
Part of the inconvenience complained of by the tenants of the building seems to have stemmed from building management staff's decision to close most of the entrances
"In fact, on the evidence, part of the inconvenience complained of by the tenants of the building seems to have stemmed from building management staff's decision to close most of the entrances," Lam wrote in his 29-page judgment. "During the period pending the trial of this matter, this loss [of space within the public open space] is one that the public can reasonably be expected to tolerate."
