Day 070 - 20 Dec 94 - Page 08


     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It is a question of what you and Ms. Steel
     2        want to do, Mr. Morris.  You have heard what I have said
     3        about it.  I am not deciding the matter, but I fear that if
     4        the point is pressed now, the answer is that there is
     5        nothing I could do, even if I wanted to.  That would not be
     6        the end of the day, because you would come back in January
     7        or February, after Dr. Gomez Gonzalez' evidence, with,
     8        I would suggest, a list -- I appreciate it might take a
     9        little time; someone has to go probably through the
    10        transcript of his evidence -- of documents which you think
    11        he has said he has seen which have not so far been
    12        disclosed or, at least, fairly precise categories of that.
    13
    14   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.  We accept that we cannot have any kind of
    15        decision or ruling or direction, or anything, at the
    16        moment, because we ourselves have not had time to read the
    17        affidavit properly.  But, if I may make some observations
    18        which may help the Plaintiffs?
    19
    20   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, do.
    21
    22   MR. MORRIS:  First of all, Mr. Rampton does not seem to realise
    23        that the only reason that Dr. Gomez Gonzalez was allowed to
    24        talk to anybody during his evidence was in order to seek
    25        out documents to disclose in the case.  So that if
    26        Dr. Gomez Gonzalez had spoken to people in Costa Rica, as
    27        he said he did, he would obviously have been doing that in
    28        order to inform Mr. Rampton about what he found, or inform
    29        the solicitors about what he found.  So the fact that
    30        Mr. Rampton has not had a chance to talk to
    31        Dr. Gomez Gonzalez and, therefore, does not know what he
    32        may or may not have seen, I find very hard to believe.  It
    33        also casts further doubt on the conversations that we want
    34        to bring up later that Dr. Gomez Gonzalez had.
    35
    36        The first thing is, the documents he alluded to in his
    37        reference, no doubt, were things that he had either seen or
    38        had talked about with people in Costa Rica during the
    39        actual evidence.
    40
    41        Secondly, the case was pleaded in 1990 -- the Defence was
    42        pleaded in 1990 -- and it is said in the affidavit that
    43        documents are kept in Costa Rica for approximately two
    44        years -- which seems to be a very short time, but that is
    45        what it says -- and in Guatemala for five years.  Guatemala
    46        and Costa Rica were both pleaded in the original Defence in
    47        1990.  So, obviously, as it was involved with litigation
    48        and the fact that Mr. Cesca says, I think it is paragraph
    49        4, about obviously anything relevant to current litigation
    50         -- I cannot remember the phrase. 
    51 
    52   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, this is, with greatest respect, quite 
    53        wrong.  The Defence was pleaded in 1990.  I do not know
    54        whether the Further and Better Particulars were given, but
    55        when they were, the year relevant to Guatemala was 1979,
    56        the only pleaded year, and the years for Costa Rica were
    57        1983, 1984 and 1988.
    58
    59   MR. MORRIS:  So that is one thing I would like to say about
    60        ongoing litigation.  Also, I cannot find it in Mr. Cesca's

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