Day 187 - 13 Nov 95 - Page 48
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2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It may not matter at the end of the day.
3 Have you or Mr. Morris thought about how long you are
4 contemplating asking the case be adjourned for between the
5 end of the evidence and the beginning of speeches? Had you
6 thought about that?
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8 MR. MORRIS: I would not like to put a figure on it, but .....
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10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think you have got to because I think you
11 have got to ask me -- I am not saying I will give it; I do
12 not have the first idea what it is at the moment.
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14 MR. MORRIS: I did bring it up before, if you remember, maybe a
15 year ago or maybe even nine months ago, this issue, and I
16 said something to the effect of I will have to read two
17 hundred days of transcripts, which will be probably 250 by
18 then, and I probably doubt if anyone can read more than
19 three days' transcript in one day to make any sense of it.
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21 Now, obviously, everybody is under pressure to finish the
22 case as soon as humanly possible, but the reality is there
23 is no point in having a case if you cannot sum it up and
24 put your case effectively and there is a lot of information
25 to get through. So, you know, we are going-----
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27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You are not going to have time between the
28 end of the evidence to read all the transcripts. There is
29 no possibility of that. One has only got to do a few sums
30 to realise how long that will involve, and the reason
31 I raise it is this. It is not really helpful either. You
32 must have a lot of the main points in your mind. I mean,
33 it is just as well we air it now.
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35 MR. MORRIS: We would certainly apply to be heard second.
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37 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, I refuse that. There is no -- you have
38 raised that before. There is no good reason for changing
39 the order of speeches.
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41 MR. MORRIS: It would help us in our appreciation of what it
42 means to make a closing speech.
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44 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am not going to do it ---
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46 MR. MORRIS: And we can have more time -----
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48 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- so you must work on the basis that you are
49 going first. Every defendant in every case could say, "It
50 would help me if the plaintiff makes his final submissions
51 before I do".
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53 MR. MORRIS: I think this is an unusual case and we are not
54 represented.
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56 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Certainly, but I am not going to accede to
57 that. The reason I mention it is this: It may well be
58 that I contemplate something like four weeks or six weeks
59 to prepare your final speeches, and if I was contemplating
60 a figure like that normally, of course, what one does in a
