Day 002 - 29 Jun 94 - Page 55
1 the irrelevant material, has been blanked out.
2 We believe that we have faithfully obeyed all the orders
which your Lordship has made in relation to discovery. We
3 observe that in a number of cases the defendants have made
applications for discovery to your Lordship which have
4 been refused.
5 My Lord, since this is an allegation of bad faith, I give
one example: We found not long ago a number of documents
6 relating to the use of imported beef dating back to
1982/3. I read some of those to your Lordship yesterday.
7 That file was discovered by accident in the offices of the
solicitors when they were looking for something else. It
8 was searched for in America and in Canada and it was not
found.
9
I ask this rhetorical question, then I will sit down: Is
10 it really to be supposed that if the plaintiffs were
concerned to conceal material that they would have gone
11 about the matter in that way; that they would have sat on
documents of that nature deliberately?
12
My Lord, I ask your Lordship to accept that the plaintiffs
13 have been faithful in their obligation to discovery, and
that if there are not in their discovery the documents
14 which do not help the defendants to prove their case, that
is because such documents do not exist.
15
MR. JUSTICE BELL: What about the witnesses whom Mr. Rampton
16 referred to?
17 MISS STEEL: I think the situation is the same as the situation
which, you may remember, with Eva Marie Sasche who is a
18 witness on behalf of the plaintiffs. They served a Civil
Evidence Act notice, as have we. They may call her as may
19 we call our witnesses. It is dependent on whether we have
the finances to bring those witness here. Basically, the
20 position is we want to bring them to give their evidence
live, but if we have not got the money to do it, we had to
21 serve a Civil Evidence Act notices so that their evidence
could at least be available to the court in the form of a
22 statement.
23 MR. RAMPTON: I understand that. I am only concerned about
notice.
24
MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. What I suggest you do, you can do it
25 entirely without prejudice in the sense that you are not
committing yourself, is in so far as you intend to call
26 someone unless something unexpected crops up, say, you are
going to call that person, that does not commit you to
27 call someone. It just means your present intention is to
call that person.
28
If there are people whom you would like to call but you
29 are not sure for some reason, whether it is availability
or for some financial reason, say: "We would like to call
30 this person but we do not know yet whether we can". That
enables everyone to get a better grasp of what is likely
