Day 313 - 13 Dec 96 - Page 28


     
     1        gave the Defendants leave to respond in relation to the
     2        counterclaim, and on the facts as well as the law.  The
     3        only other permission that the Defendants have is to put in
     4        transcript references, or document references, in writing
     5        before noon on 18th December and to make legal
     6        submissions.  Mr. Morris has no right, as I have understood
     7        your Lordship's ruling, to address your Lordship on
     8        anything to do with the rest of the facts of the case.
     9
    10   MR. MORRIS:  This is a legal submission.
    11
    12   MR. JUSTICE BELL: They must be legal.
    13
    14   MR. MORRIS:  Yes, I understand that.
    15
    16   MR. JUSTICE BELL: I said to Ms. Steel when she wanted to say
    17        something about publication that I would not stop her if
    18        there were just one or two matters, and she did restrict
    19        herself to, I think, three points.  But we have to have our
    20        procedures, and there has to be an end to argument about
    21        matters of evidence and the inference you would draw from
    22        it simply because otherwise at the moment you finished
    23        Mr. Rampton is entitled to stand up and respond to that,
    24        and then what Mr. Rampton said will have prompted you to
    25        think of something else and we go on indefinitely.
    26
    27   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.  No, it is just...
    28
    29   MR. JUSTICE BELL: If it is a new point of law then.
    30
    31   MR. MORRIS:  You said we could bring up new points of law, or if
    32        something was obviously inaccurate.  I do not think I have
    33        got...
    34
    35   MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, go ahead, but bear that very much in mind.
    36
    37   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.
    38
    39   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Otherwise we just set off again on argument
    40        about matters.
    41
    42   MR. MORRIS:  Right.  The point I was making about -- well, OK.
    43        Page 8 of Mr. Rampton's submissions on rainforests refers
    44        to Fiona Watson's evidence, and he said that her referring
    45        to the CEDI document because it was in Portuguese was
    46        inadmissible, but the point is she is entitled, as an
    47        expert, to give evidence based upon documentation that she
    48        has read.  The court cannot take the evidence direct from
    49        the document if it is in Portuguese, but her opinion is
    50        evidence.
    51
    52        I refer to Mr. Rampton's legal submissions, page 22, where
    53        he quotes Bingham L.J., about two-thirds of the way down
    54        the page, and it was referring to figures and statistics
    55        that were relied on by an expert but not compiled by an
    56        expert, and then there is a statement from Mr. Justice
    57        Bingham that says, "If an expert refers to the results of
    58        research published by a reputable authority in a reputable
    59        journal the court would, I think, ordinarily regard these
    60        results as supporting inferences fairly to be drawn from

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