Day 177 - 26 Oct 95 - Page 31


     
     1   MS. STEEL:  I am actually very -----
     2
     3   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just pause there, because I am afraid we have
     4        to follow the system.  Make a note of this and come back to
     5        it when you make your submissions.
     6
     7   MS. STEEL:   It might have helped, as well, if this page had
     8        been handed to us last week, so that we could check up the
     9        rest of the ruling and the matters surrounding it.
    10
    11   MR. MORRIS:  If I could just say, if you look at the next
    12        point -----
    13
    14   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No.  We must follow the form.
    15
    16   MR. MORRIS:  It is a matter of fact.
    17
    18   MR. JUSTICE BELL: We  have to follow the rules.  You know what
    19        they are well enough by now.  You wait your turn.  Make a
    20        note in the margin that you want to come back to this.
    21
    22   MR. RAMPTON:  It is in here.  I prefer, my Lord, if I am able
    23        to, to clear up misunderstandings as they happen; it saves
    24        time in the end.  7th July.  I have the whole judgment
    25        here.  The page which I was reading from end with the words
    26        "and that they exploit".  It continues on the next page:
    27        ".....improperly exploit the staff they employ.  This list
    28        of charges is not exhaustive, but illustrates the nature of
    29        the attack made upon the Plaintiffs", not which the
    30        Plaintiffs say is made upon them.  I can give your Lordship
    31        the reference to where Drake J. in fact sets out what he
    32        understands the Plaintiffs' case to be -- if I can find it
    33        now, but I do not want to waste time.  It is later on in
    34        the judgment -- in the same judgment, in fact.  It is on
    35        page 11, starting at letter B, where he sets out what the
    36        allegations of libel are in contrast to what he has done
    37        earlier on on pages 2 and 3.
    38
    39        I pray that in aid because, as I have said, it may be
    40        your Lordship will derive some assistance from the
    41        impression which a judge whose mind was relatively
    42        unsullied by any facts or argument in the case at that
    43        stage, the impression which the leaflet made on that mind.
    44        I do it in this way not because Drake J. or anybody is else
    45        is allowed to give your Lordship evidence about the
    46        meaning; it is simply because, if that is the impression on
    47        an unsullied mind (or relatively unsullied mind), then it
    48        is the sort of impression, we would submit, that it is
    49        likely to have made on the ordinary reasonable reader.  It
    50        is a question of impression.  In the case of this 
    51        particular leaflet, one might even say that it was a 
    52        question of impact.  I am going to come back to the 
    53        leaflet, not in the sort of detail I did when we argued
    54        about the proposed amendment, but certainly to draw some
    55        points to your Lordship's attention in support of my
    56        submission that it is really the impact of this leaflet,
    57        this particular part of the leaflet, which leads to that
    58        rather stark conclusion for which we contend and which one
    59        sees in Drake J.'s judgment there.
    60

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