Day 284 - 22 Oct 96 - Page 08


     
     1        me to be non-defamatory and innocuous.  It may be that you
     2        could allege there are other defamatory meanings apart from
     3        those which you have justified.  So I am very keen to hear
     4        what you have to say about that so that I can compare it
     5        with what McDonald's have pleaded as the defamatory
     6        meaning.
     7
     8        It is something which I put in the note I gave you which
     9        was designed to try and help you something over a year ago
    10        now.  I said that was one of the things I particularly
    11        wanted to hear from you on.
    12
    13   MR. MORRIS:   Right.
    14
    15   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   I have gone on far too long about it.  It is
    16        a genuine attempt to try and help you.  I appreciate you
    17        may want to think about it, but I think you can still get
    18        on with your submissions, and particularly your submissions
    19        on what the various facts you say are important and which
    20        you have proved in relation to each section of the
    21        leaflet.
    22
    23   MR. MORRIS:   Okay.  What I am going to deal with today, and we
    24        are not really prepared, is to start off with the
    25        rainforests section of the case.  And we have not had any
    26        advice about meaning or facts and comment or, indeed, what
    27        is defamatory and what is not defamatory.  And it seems to
    28        us to be, whether it is the law of the land or not, bizarre
    29        to have what I yesterday called fancy footwork, to have to
    30        think about well, if we say this is the meaning, then we
    31        cannot get this evidence in or evidence would be allowed in
    32        but it might not be strong enough because of this reason.
    33
    34        So I am not going to deal with what is fact and comment.
    35        And this applies to all the meanings and all the sections
    36        at this stage.  Because I still, in my own mind, do not
    37        know the strict legal definition of those words, if they
    38        are terms of art.  But the most important thing to us is
    39        the sting of the allegation, is McDonald's responsible and
    40        in what way is McDonald's responsible for the destruction
    41        of tropical forests by whatever means and methods that
    42        destruction is carried out.
    43
    44        Can I say now that I am going to go through this, the
    45        meanings and some of the core evidence on this subject
    46        today and I have not had time to get the transcript
    47        references, the specific references.
    48
    49   MR JUSTICE BELL:  Well, if you can give me references, do; if
    50        you cannot, just try and refer me generally to the nature 
    51        of the evidence, because although a lot of it I may have 
    52        made a note of already, it saves me time if you can give me 
    53        the references.  If you cannot, I will just hunt it out
    54        myself.
    55
    56   MR. MORRIS:   Right.  Well, maybe if there is anything in
    57        particular which surprises you or you have forgotten about
    58        or something, you can make a note.
    59
    60   MR JUSTICE BELL:  I will put down a marker and you can try and

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