Day 311 - 06 Dec 96 - Page 36
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2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am sorry, you must not interrupt.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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39 Yes, Mr. Rampton.
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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.
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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.
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60 But the other side of it is that, unlike a case where a
