Day 019 - 27 Jul 94 - Page 52
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- but what I suggest is that Mr. Morris
asks his general questions in relation to the battery
2 chickens. If, at the end of the day, you persuade me that
the answers, whatever they are, are not relevant to an
3 issue, that is another matter.
4 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, it is not that I am concerned with. I am
not concerned in any sense in this area of the case about
5 damage limitation. Your Lordship will have noticed that
I remained remarkably silent all day. What I am concerned
6 about are two things, and I will be quite frank about it.
One is waste of time and when Mr. Morris, I say this with
7 the greatest respect to him, him not being a professional
advocate, ask questions, they tend to consist of speeches
8 about his political position to a large extent; the second
thing I am concerned about is that this court should not
9 be used as a platform for what I might call animal right
sentiments. There are specific issues in this case which
10 have to be dealt with.
11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What I think, Mr. Morris, is you ask your
general questions about the Oasters now. If you want to
12 ask more specific ones, then I will make a ruling, if
I have to, in relation to that. But it seems to me we may
13 very well not come to that. You put your general
questions in relation to any matters you want to in
14 relation to Oasters.
15 MS. STEEL: OK.
16 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But, I repeat again, you do not have to do
so.
17
MS. STEEL: Right.
18
MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am not inviting you to do that. If you
19 ask a question which you do not have to ask of the other
side's witness, you may get an answer helpful to you.
20 Equally, you may get an answer which is contrary to your
interests which you would have never got if you had not
21 asked the question. But you are aware of that.
22 MS. STEEL: Right. Yes. I just wanted to come back on
something Mr. Rampton said. The Plaintiffs are suing over
23 this issue. It was them that brought animal welfare into
this case. They could have accepted that people were
24 entitled to hold their own beliefs and not sued over this
issue. Also, yesterday Mr. Rampton brought in a great
25 deal of opinion and matters that were not relevant to any
issue in this case when he brought up about what would
26 happen if everybody stopped eating meat all in one go; I
mean, that was not relevant to any issue in this case.
27
MR. JUSTICE BELL: No. I am not offering any opinion on that
28 at all. You ask a question on the generality, if you want
to. Then I suggest you leave over any question of whether
29 we need, considering we have gone into the broilers who,
I suspect, far outnumber the egg layers, it may not be so,
30 but I would assume that there are far more broilers
concerned with the McDonald's system than there are egg
