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.

Prev Next Index