Day 154 - 13 Jul 95 - Page 53
1 seven European cases. I do not know what they say. I do
2 not know what the point is because there is no skeleton
3 argument. I must assume that this is not just a puff of
4 smoke and, therefore, I must take it seriously.
5 Mr. Atkinson and I have discussed this list and we conclude
6 that it requires him to spend a day and a half to two days
7 in the library going through these authorities and then, of
8 course, after that he has to brief me for a hearing. My
9 Lord, in addition to that I add that Mr. Morris told
10 Mr. Atkinson yesterday that he estimated the length of the
11 hearing he wanted to have as being half a day. Taking
12 those two things into account, and that he said half a day
13 with this list of authorities, it somewhat surprises me
14 because I would have thought it is probably an
15 underestimate.
16
17 Given that situation, my Lord, I have to say that I do not
18 believe it humanly possible for us to be in a position to
19 deal with this application tomorrow, even if the pair of us
20 were to stay up all night which is not advisable anyway.
21
22 There is another reason why we believe it is inconvenient
23 to have the hearing tomorrow, and that is that I have a
24 witness ready to give evidence at 10.30 in the morning. He
25 is a witness who comes from London and, therefore, is not
26 inconvenienced by the proposed rail strike. I would like
27 to start him at 10.30 and, if possible, to finish him on
28 Monday. Lest the Defendants should say, and I know your
29 Lordship does not think much of it and nor frankly do
30 I, that they will be gravely disadvantaged in the conduct
31 of their case if this application is put off until Tuesday,
32 but so as to obviate any bleating from their side of court,
33 I am instructed to say that McDonald's will postpone their
34 termination of the transcript facility until the end of
35 Monday. By this route they will have a transcript of
36 today's hearing, Friday's hearing and Monday's hearing. By
37 that means any urgency which the Defendants might feel the
38 application has evaporates and we have sufficient time, or
39 rather poor Mr. Atkinson does, to plough his way through
40 this list of authorities over the next two or three days.
41 If he does that, of course, he will not be in court or
42 Friday or I dare say on Monday.
43
44 MR. JUSTICE BELL: How long is Mr. Gardina likely to be
45 in-chief?
46
47 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I think about two hours. I want to try
48 to ensure, even if I cut some corners, that he gets a day
49 and a half in cross-examination. If he does not finish on
50 Monday, then he will have to finish on Tuesday or whatever
51 course your Lordship decides to take. The point about him
52 is, my Lord, that he, as your Lordship will recall, deals
53 with a whole of lot of allegations made in a Civil Evidence
54 Act statement by Mr. David McGee which he had not seen at
55 the time when he made his statement. All he responded to
56 then was what is in the pleading. Given that Mr. McGee is
57 not going to be here and we have a live witness in this
58 country, we could have served Mr. Gardina by way of a Civil
59 Evidence Act statement, but no doubt there would have been
60 a counter notice and he would have had to come anyway.
