Day 263 - 14 Jun 96 - Page 32


     
     1        Mustill J. is answering the question "what is fair" by
     2        saying you must disclose everything which relates to the
     3        evidence you deployed in court.  By that, you may be
     4        thought to mean everything relating to the evidence or
     5        emanating from the particular witness or the particular
     6        document which you deploy in court.
     7
     8        My Lord, that may be so.  It can, perhaps, be seen from the
     9        way in which he dealt with the second question, which was
    10        list of questions prepared for use by the Greek lawyer who
    11        interviewed the seaman.  That starts in the middle of the
    12        right-hand column on page 139:
    13
    14             "The Judge then considered whether privilege
    15             had been waived in relation to the list of
    16             questions which had been used by T, the Greek
    17             lawyer, in his interview with the seaman:
    18
    19             'As stated in the reasons which I gave for my
    20             previous ruling, I believe that in summary and
    21             in perhaps not very concise terms one can see a
    22             rule of positive law in the interests of
    23             justice, that where a party chooses to deploy
    24             evidence which would otherwise be privileged the
    25             court and the opposition must, in relation to
    26             the issue in question, be given the opportunity
    27             to satisfy themselves that they have the whole
    28             of the material and not merely a fragment.  Thus
    29             I am start by asking myself what are the issues
    30             in relation to which the material has been
    31             deployed?  Of course, the prime issue is whether
    32             and, if so, in what circumstances, the seaman
    33             accepted the truth of an account of events
    34             different from one which on two other occasions
    35             he has put forward.  This involves the question
    36             whether he did give the answers recorded in
    37             document P 35, whether that document represents
    38             a complete record of what happened and of what
    39             might be termed the general atmosphere of the
    40             meeting, having regard to the seaman's evidence
    41             that he signed his statement to get rid of the
    42             lawyers.'
    43
    44                  "It was essential, therefore, for the court
    45             to see the meeting as a whole, and for that
    46             purpose the Judge's view was that the whole of
    47             the substance of the meeting was a 'legitimate
    48             subject for disclosure and for
    49             cross-examination.'
    50 
    51                  "With that broad approach in mind, I now 
    52             turn to the specific issues before me.  I will 
    53             deal first with the list of questions."
    54
    55        My Lord, that was the list of questions which the Greek
    56        lawyer had used on behalf of the Plaintiffs at the meeting
    57        with the seaman.
    58
    59             "Mr. Evans" -- he was counsel for the
    60             Plaintiffs -- "submits that the mere fact that a

Prev Next Index