Day 311 - 06 Dec 96 - Page 36


     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I am sorry, you must not interrupt.
     3
     4   MR. RAMPTON:  -- and grasping that which they may have honestly
     5        believed, but also important allegations for which they
     6        have no foundation whatever, putting them together and
     7        using them as the weapon with which to achieve the ultimate
     8        end.
     9
    10   MS. STEEL:   Can I just say something?  The reason I said that
    11        comment is because I actually take offence at the
    12        suggestion that I have got some racist thing against
    13        American multi-nationals.  Obviously, we are opposed to
    14        multi-nationals.  It has got nothing to do with the fact
    15        that they are American.
    16
    17   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Very well.  Please listen to me.  There are
    18        lots of things in litigation -- they have appeared
    19        throughout the two and a half years of this case; they
    20        particularly appear when speeches are being made -- where
    21        people may get uptight about one thing or another.  One
    22        must just do one's best to let them pass by.  I accept that
    23        if there is something which is palpably wrong and where
    24        either a litigant in person or counsel or a solicitor think
    25        that the judge may be deceived by a statement to wrong
    26        effect, the other side feels bound to stand up and say
    27        something about it.  But the judge has to be given some
    28        credit for being able to form his own judgment as to what
    29        is justified by the evidence and what is not, whether it is
    30        made as comment by an advocate or a litigant on one side or
    31        the other.
    32
    33        I do not know whether you realise it, but for most of this
    34        morning you have been doing a lot of muttering.  I have not
    35        said anything about it, but I do urge you to just sit tight
    36        and let Mr. Rampton get on with his comments one way or the
    37        other.
    38
    39        Yes, Mr. Rampton.
    40
    41   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, your Lordship asked me a general
    42        question, and I hope that I have answered it.  It is a
    43        matter for your Lordship to decide in the end, on the basis
    44        of all the material that is relied on in relation to
    45        malice; and that does very much in this case include the
    46        way the Defendants have conducted themselves in courts.
    47
    48        I would add to that this observation: it could cut both
    49        ways.  It is only right -- and I am sure your Lordship will
    50        -- to take account, in assessing the Defendants' conduct 
    51        in court, to recognise that where two litigants in person 
    52        have had to conduct a defence over a period of, including 
    53        preparatory times, maybe three more years, that will impose
    54        a strain on them, in two senses: one, the sheer volume of
    55        work; and, second, that they are the personal targets of
    56        the sue.  Both those factors must be taken into account,
    57        and I have made allowance for that in what I have said on
    58        the submission in malice.
    59
    60        But the other side of it is that, unlike a case where a

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