Day 157 - 18 Jul 95 - Page 22


     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Right.  Start off with telling me whether
     2        they are official or not and what your authority for that
     3        is.
     4
     5   MS. STEEL:   To be honest, we cannot actually pin down whether
     6        they are official or not.
     7
     8   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Suppose they are official; where is my power?
     9
    10   MS. STEEL:   Because official, I mean, it just must be that
    11        official court records, it is open to the court to decide
    12        what it wants to do with them, therefore, it must be within
    13        your power to allow us to make copies or to provide us with
    14        copies out of public funds.
    15
    16   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Why do you say that?
    17
    18   MS. STEEL:   Just because they are an official record of the
    19        proceedings.
    20
    21   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I do not follow that, I am afraid.  I mean,
    22        even High Court Judges have limits on their power.
    23
    24   MS. STEEL:  I do not know, it just seems that it cannot be fair
    25        that there can be official records of proceedings which are
    26        only available to one party.
    27
    28   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I understand that is your argument, but what
    29        I thought you were going to come back to today is to say
    30        that you found some new lead into a power which on 4th July
    31        I decided I did not have subject to any further argument.
    32
    33   MS. STEEL:  I mean, Mr. Morris referred to the point in the
    34        European cases about the equality of arms being considered
    35        an essential element of a fair trial.  As I understand it,
    36        the courts in this country are supposed to try to adhere to
    37        the recommendations of the European Court of Human Rights
    38        and to try to follow directions or suggestions that they
    39        have put down.
    40
    41   MR. MORRIS:  The thing is I am going to come to entitlement to
    42        costs which is Ord. 62, r. 3, but I was going to deal with
    43        the specific White Book on transcripts and official
    44        shorthand note first, because it is our contention that the
    45        purpose of the stenographers' firm here is to provide
    46        CaseView facilities by agreement for all the parties which
    47        McDonald's are now saying should be limited only to them,
    48        and that they have a private arrangement with the firm who
    49        are not there as official transcribers.
    50 
    51        The official transcribers, for example, can sit in a 
    52        different room, get tapes and make an official transcript 
    53        and they are, effectively, providing a service for one
    54        party producing, as we speak, a non-official record which
    55        they later check against tapes from the Mechanical
    56        Recording Department.
    57
    58        This leads to, as far as we can see, various contradictory
    59        problems because they are, in effect, employed by one
    60        party.  They are not at this moment, as we speak, producing

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