I had the same problem, although I am using Richfaces 4.x. One possible solution I tried is to wrap the rich:pickList with span or div and set
dir="ltr"
Hope it was not helpful.
Also check https://community.jboss.org/thread/197043
Update: I could finally solved the issue :)
1. Create a new Java class org.richfaces.renderkit.html.PickListRenderer in your project. Use the source of current richfaces version.
2. Replace in method encodeEnd()
responseWriter.writeAttribute("style","width: 1px; position: absolute; left: -32767px;",null);
by
responseWriter.writeAttribute("style", "visibility:hidden;", null);
This replaces the style of button created above the list in
rich:pickList to
visibility:hidden.
Please note your container as well. I use Tomcat, which read classes under /WEB-INF/classes before /WEB-INF/lib/*.jar [Overriding a class file from a library JAR in a Java web app]