Day 149 - 06 Jul 95 - Page 19


     
     1        Force and, at the end of it, there is a note saying, "And
     2        we all wish so and so a happy birthday", as it was his
     3        birthday, his 50th anniversary or something, there is no
     4        way that could possibly be relevant in this case.  However,
     5        if a matter was discussed at the Health and Safety Task
     6        Force meeting in the minutes and the matter may itself not
     7        be relevant to an issue in the case, the fact that it was
     8        discussed at the meeting must be relevant, because we have
     9        an entitlement to know what was discussed at the meeting,
    10        the weight given to certain issues as opposed to other
    11        issues.
    12
    13        So, all I am saying is that I just think that the spirit of
    14        the ruling in the higher court, the Court of Appeal --
    15        I cannot believe it would give carte blanche for a
    16        disclosing party to wipe out any matter they feel like on
    17        any document they feel like, unless the other party can
    18        show that it must be relevant.  I think that we have a
    19        right; if a document is relevant, then the content of that
    20        document is relevant, even if it does not go to an issue in
    21        the case, unless it is clearly something which is
    22        completely, you know -- do you see what I am saying?
    23
    24        If, for example, meetings of the Health and Safety Task
    25        Force are relevant, the fact that it existed is relevant;
    26        therefore, anything that goes to what was discussed at that
    27        meeting must be relevant, even if they discussed something
    28        that was not strictly an issue in this case.  The fact that
    29        it was discussed is relevant.
    30
    31        So, all I am saying is that the power or the right of a
    32        party to blank out documents cannot be an unfettered power
    33        or right.  There must be some kind of, you know, common
    34        sense brought into play.  Otherwise, we could have 40,000
    35        documents of which 95 per cent have blanking out; and I do
    36        not believe that trials would function properly.  That is
    37        all I want to say.
    38
    39   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, since your Lordship has those documents
    40        in front of you, may I start with these Health and Safety
    41        documents and the blanking out?  What we have done is what
    42        we believe to be in accordance with the law as propounded
    43        in that judgment in the Court of Appeal, which is this:  we
    44        have left in everything that is relevant to the issues in
    45        the action; we have excluded, by blanking out, everything
    46        which is irrelevant.
    47
    48        We have taken the view, for example -- and that this
    49        accounts for a large amount of the blanking out -- that
    50        discussion of customer safety is of no relevance to the 
    51        action, and that will be removed. 
    52 
    53        We went from there to the following principles, that the
    54        Company's general attitude, approach and policies in
    55        relation to employees' safety were relevant to the issues
    56        in the action, and everything that expressly or impliedly
    57        bears on that question has been left in.
    58
    59        We went from there to say to ourselves, beyond that
    60        anything is relevant, matters of detail are relevant, which

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