Day 148 - 05 Jul 95 - Page 42
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am certainly not going to have included in
2 any order what "documentation" is. It will merely say that
3 it should be in relation to issues on the counterclaim and,
4 in the light of what you have said, I may have to give a
5 bit of guidance as to what the issues are, but it will be
6 on the pleadings as they are at the moment.
7
8 I am not going to delay making an order which is right and
9 just to make on the pleadings as they are at the moment
10 because you have said that you might think about making a
11 striking out application at some stage in the future. You
12 have had ample time to make such an application if you
13 wanted to.
14
15 MS. STEEL: I really do not think that is fair, to be honest,
16 because we are in court every day. It is extremely
17 difficult for us to get legal advice at the best of times.
18 We have a hundred and one different things that we have to
19 get legal advice on. It is an impossible situation and we
20 have asked for -----
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have to say, because I do not want to
23 encourage you, following what Neill L.J. said in the Court
24 of Appeal on 25th March 1995, or, put more accurately, what
25 was contained in the judgment which he handed down,
26 I cannot see any basis for a striking out application in
27 relation to this part of the Plaintiffs' pleading.
28
29 MS. STEEL: I can because there is absolutely no evidence
30 whatsoever to connect either of us with distributing
31 leaflets in countries where we have never even visited. It
32 is an impossible situation.
33
34 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You must address your argument to me at the
35 moment on the basis of what is in the pleadings, the issues
36 as they appear from the pleading.
37
38 MS. STEEL: Would it be possible to have the five-minute break?
39
40 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
41
42 (Short Adjournment)
43
44 MR. MORRIS: Apart from the things that have been said (which we
45 stick to), we have sought discovery in this case. We have
46 a reasonable belief that, for example, the McDonald's
47 Corporation is hostile to trade unions, for example --
48 something that is an extremely reasonable belief. We have
49 asked in the past for general discovery on any incidents
50 that there may have been of union disputes. We have been
51 told that discovery is only relevant to specifically
52 pleaded incidents with specific particulars.
53
54 It seems to us that the Plaintiffs are asking for any
55 relevant documents or any documents associating us with
56 London Greenpeace and the McLibel support campaign any time
57 for any purpose, and without having to give specific
58 pleadings on what exactly the document is they are seeking
59 that they believe exists, relevant to which incident that
60 we were involved at in which way, for reasons best known to
