Day 260 - 11 Jun 96 - Page 70


     
     1        actual application of them, and this seems to me to go back
     2        to the G.E. Capital point rather than anything new -- do
     3        you remember that is the case where the Court of Appeal
     4        discussed the circumstances in which parts of documents
     5        could be blanked out, and I have said on previous occasions
     6        something to the effect that if Mr. Rampton tells me that a
     7        matter is not relevant, what has been blanked out is not
     8        relevant, then I have been inclined to follow that, unless
     9        there is something in what is left of the document which
    10        would indicate that the part blanked out would lead me to
    11        suppose that it is relevant, or unless there is something
    12        to indicate that I need the part which is blanked out to
    13        make sense of the remainder.
    14
    15   MS. STEEL:   Right.
    16
    17   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  So, when you see Mr. Hall again you might
    18        tell him, in case he does not know already, that we have
    19        had all that kind of discussion and I think somewhere, in
    20        case he has not got it, you have a copy of the transcript
    21        of the G.E. Capital case.
    22
    23   MS. STEEL:   Yes, somewhere.
    24
    25   MR. RAMPTON:  In fact, Ms. Steel is, if I may say so quite
    26        rudely, although I mean it jocularly this time, she is up a
    27        gum tree.  The original bit about the IMF was blanked out
    28        because it was not relevant at the time it was blanked
    29        out.  It attracted some marginal relevance after the
    30        Defendants amended their defence.  We have had none before
    31        that.  All that mattered was that she was at the meeting.
    32
    33   MS. STEEL:   We were told by Mr. Rampton -- not us personally --
    34        Mr. Rampton told the court that he had left in every
    35        reference to myself, Mr. Morris and McDonald's, and
    36        clearly, from the documents that have recently been
    37        disclosed, that was completely untrue.
    38
    39   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It does not matter.  It could have been said
    40        to have been arguably relevant because I have understood it
    41        is part of the Defendants' case that they were more
    42        interested in other things, one of them being the IMF.  But
    43        I am not interested in relation to that unless I have an
    44        argument on it, because the point I am making now is even
    45        if you were right that matters had been blanked out in the
    46        past which were arguably relevant -- and I know Mr. Rampton
    47        disputes the fact -- I will not or it is unlikely I will
    48        assume from that positively that parts which remain blanked
    49        out are therefore relevant.
    50 
    51        What I think you would be well advised to do is to make 
    52        sure Mr. Hall is aware that we have had this argument from 
    53        time to time.  But quite apart from any question of
    54        privilege, there is the question of relevance.  There is
    55        the G.E. Capital case in case he does not know of it or it
    56        has slipped his mind, which gives some guidance on the
    57        circumstances in which parts of documents can be blanked
    58        out and the sort of test which the judge applies in
    59        deciding whether the whole of a document should be there.
    60        That is the only point I am making.

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