HC Deb 25 February 1958 vol 583 cc27-8W
66. Mr. Prentice

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what types of picketing are affected by the provisions of the Penal Code (Amendment) (No. 2) Ordinance, 1957, in Northern Rhodesia; why it has been considered necessary to impose higher penalties than those operating under the Trade Unions and Trade Disputes Ordinance, 1949; and why the consent of the Attorney-General will not be required for prosecutions under the new ordinance.

Mr. Profumo

The Penal Code Ordinance providesinter alia that every person who wrongfully and without legal authority watches or besets

  1. "(a) any premises or the approaches to such premises with a view to preventing any other person from doing any act which such other person has a legal right to do thereat; or
  2. (b) the house or other place where any other person resides or works or carries on business, or happens to be, or the approaches to such house or place with a view to preventing such other person from doing or compelling him to do any act which such other person has a legal right to do or abstain from doing;"
shall be guilty of an offence.

The penalty for unlawful picketing introduced in the Penal Code in 1954 has not been changed—that is, a fine not exceeding £100 or a term of imprisonment not exceeding six months. The penalty for intimidation or annoyance under the Trade Unions and Trade Disputes Ordinance was a fine not exceeding £20 or a term of imprisonment not exceeding three months. This was considered to be out of line with the penalty for unlawful picketing, and the opportunity was therefore taken with the transfer of the relevant provision to the Penal Code to bring it into line, so that the penalty is now a fine not exceeding £100 or a term of imprisonment not exceeding six months. The requirement in the unlawful picketing provision already in the Penal Code that no person should be prosecuted without the written consent of the Attorney-General proved too cumbersome. It has been dropped in view of the safeguard for the rights of the individual transferred from the Trade Unions and Trade Disputes Ordinance that only persons who picket "wrongfully and without legal authority" are guilty of an offence.

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