Day 110 - 29 Mar 95 - Page 24


     
     1        satisfactory solution, to me the reservations which you
     2        have about it.
     3
     4        What one has to keep reminding oneself of, it seems to me,
     5        is what the alternative to reaching some kind of agreement
     6        is.  Had it not been for my suggestion at an interlocutory
     7        stage about how the witnesses might more conveniently be
     8        called, unless Mr. Rampton had suggested it or you had
     9        suggested it, this case would have followed the normal
    10        course, which is that Mr. Rampton would have called all his
    11        witnesses in whatever order he wanted to, without any
    12        breaks in between them -- whether we then started at the
    13        end of June or a little later, it is now totally academic
    14        to debate -- Mr. Rampton would have called every one of his
    15        witnesses one after the other in whatever order he wanted
    16        to.  Then, when he got to the end of that exercise, I would
    17        have called upon Ms. Steel to call such witnesses as she
    18        wanted to and then I would have called upon you,
    19        Mr. Morris, to call whatever witnesses you wanted to call,
    20        including in the case of each of you yourselves.
    21
    22        That would, I think, have been a most inconvenient and
    23        unhelpful way of doing it.  We have got on through a number
    24        of the witnesses now.  If we ever come to a stage where
    25        co-operation breaks down, the only course to take is to go
    26        back from now on to what would be the normal procedure with
    27        Mr. Rampton calling all the rest of his witnesses and you
    28        calling yours.  I think all parties probably want to try to
    29        avoid that if they possibly can.
    30
    31   MS. STEEL:  Even if we went back to that system, I would be
    32        surprised if there was not some power that you had for
    33        breaks for the sake of our health and things like that.
    34
    35   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, I could do that.  What I am doing is
    36        comparing the situation we are in with what would be the
    37        normal procedure in a case.
    38
    39   MS. STEEL:  Save with a few specific examples, we are not
    40        demanding that their witnesses are called in a particular
    41        order; it is concern about sufficient time for preparation
    42        and for our health.
    43
    44   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  All I am doing is reminding myself as well as
    45        you of what the alternative was to doing these things by
    46        agreement.
    47
    48   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, this schedule that I have now, as
    49        I explained yesterday, is a loose schedule.  There will be
    50        lots of gaps in it, as the Defendants know perfectly well, 
    51        and accepted yesterday.  Their only concern yesterday was 
    52        that they should not have to do Nicholson on publication 
    53        and Nicholson on employment, prepare for that all at the
    54        same time over the two-and-a-half weeks that they will get
    55        over Easter.  Subject to that, it is a perfectly gentle,
    56        rather loose schedule which allows plenty of time to relax
    57        and to prepare between now and the end of June.
    58
    59   MS. STEEL:  Actually, that is not right.
    60

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