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.
