Belgium's Constitutional Court on Thursday upheld the picket lines that blocked Delhaize shops during last year's industrial dispute, and rejected the use of a unilateral court procedure to have these blockades lifted.
The ruling relates to the strikes that broke out in many parts of Belgium following the announcement by Delhaize on 7 March 2023 that 128 of its stores would be sold to franchisees. Following the announcement, a number of stores had been blockaded.
The President of the Court of First Instance in Liège had ordered a ban on these blockades on five occasions by means of a unilateral petition - a non-adversarial emergency procedure as opposed to summary proceedings - under penalty of fines.
The unions denounced this as an unprecedented attack on the right to strike and challenged one of the orders.
Belgium's judicial code already provides that the fact that strikers prevent customers from accessing shops is not "a cause of absolute necessity" that would justify the owner's use of the unilateral procedure to have the blockades banned.
The president of the Liège Court of First Instance asked the Constitutional Court whether that provision was indeed constitutional in terms of property rights. For Belgium's main labour unions and the Belgian Human Rights League, a negative answer would have infringed seriously on the right to strike.
The Constitutional Court agreed, ruling that the contested provision was indeed constitutional.
It also stressed that the right to strike did not constitute a ‘cause of absolute necessity’ justifying derogation from the adversarial principle.
