Day 087 - 10 Feb 95 - Page 13


     
     1        contents of documents about which there might well be
     2        admissibility?
     3
     4   MR. RAMPTON:  I do not know but that has been the way of it so
     5        far.  It makes me very jumpy, as your Lordship has seen,
     6        because -- I do not mind what your Lordship reads, that
     7        worries me not in the very least -- it is in open court
     8        and, I will be frank, because my perception is that to an
     9        extent, at least, the Defendants have abused that.  It does
    10        make me jumpy.
    11
    12   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I am not personally myself raising that as a
    13        concern, it is just it is easier to deal with.
    14
    15   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, yes, but, with respect, I am entitled, so
    16        far as I can persuade your Lordship to agree with me, to
    17        protect my clients against the use of inadmissible material
    18        to, as it were, adversely affect their interests. If, on an
    19        application for discovery, for example, that is a risk,
    20        then, my Lord, in the exercise of your Lordship's
    21        discretion, I would submit that the right thing to do is to
    22        sit in chambers until the matter has been resolved.  If the
    23        documents then come out, because your Lordship makes an
    24        order or because I volunteer them, and if they become
    25        admissible in evidence, why, then no harm is done; if they
    26        do not become admissible or they are not disclosable, why,
    27        then a potential harm is prevented.
    28
    29   MS. STEEL:   We would ask that the court does remain open.  If
    30        there is some particular document that comes up that
    31        Mr. Rampton is particularly sensitive about, then perhaps
    32        we can deal with it then and we will not read anything out
    33        or anything like that.  That was not what I was going to do
    34        with this topic.  I just wanted to -----
    35
    36   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No, all right.  Carry on then.
    37
    38   MS. STEEL:  I understood the point about serving a Civil
    39        Evidence Act Notice on a document, not meaning that the
    40        whole document was evidence in relation to a press report
    41        because it would only be the statement of an individual
    42        made in there.  What I am not quite sure is how that would
    43        apply to this document, because it appears to be an
    44        official report all the way through.
    45
    46        So, I was wondering whether, if it is thought that this
    47        does not apply to this document, that could be explained in
    48        terms of pointing out a paragraph, but I cannot really see
    49        how that would apply to this.
    50 
    51   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What is lost on me at the moment, your 
    52        suggestion that because a report was "official", whatever 
    53        that might mean, it had some status, evidential status,
    54        different to any other document, is news to me.
    55
    56   MR. MORRIS:  I thought Mr. Rampton's point from the White Book
    57        was that if something is compiled by someone acting out
    58        their duty, then the whole document -----
    59
    60   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No, that is not the point.

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