Day 177 - 26 Oct 95 - Page 31
1 MS. STEEL: I am actually very -----
2
3 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just pause there, because I am afraid we have
4 to follow the system. Make a note of this and come back to
5 it when you make your submissions.
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7 MS. STEEL: It might have helped, as well, if this page had
8 been handed to us last week, so that we could check up the
9 rest of the ruling and the matters surrounding it.
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11 MR. MORRIS: If I could just say, if you look at the next
12 point -----
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14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No. We must follow the form.
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16 MR. MORRIS: It is a matter of fact.
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18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We have to follow the rules. You know what
19 they are well enough by now. You wait your turn. Make a
20 note in the margin that you want to come back to this.
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22 MR. RAMPTON: It is in here. I prefer, my Lord, if I am able
23 to, to clear up misunderstandings as they happen; it saves
24 time in the end. 7th July. I have the whole judgment
25 here. The page which I was reading from end with the words
26 "and that they exploit". It continues on the next page:
27 ".....improperly exploit the staff they employ. This list
28 of charges is not exhaustive, but illustrates the nature of
29 the attack made upon the Plaintiffs", not which the
30 Plaintiffs say is made upon them. I can give your Lordship
31 the reference to where Drake J. in fact sets out what he
32 understands the Plaintiffs' case to be -- if I can find it
33 now, but I do not want to waste time. It is later on in
34 the judgment -- in the same judgment, in fact. It is on
35 page 11, starting at letter B, where he sets out what the
36 allegations of libel are in contrast to what he has done
37 earlier on on pages 2 and 3.
38
39 I pray that in aid because, as I have said, it may be
40 your Lordship will derive some assistance from the
41 impression which a judge whose mind was relatively
42 unsullied by any facts or argument in the case at that
43 stage, the impression which the leaflet made on that mind.
44 I do it in this way not because Drake J. or anybody is else
45 is allowed to give your Lordship evidence about the
46 meaning; it is simply because, if that is the impression on
47 an unsullied mind (or relatively unsullied mind), then it
48 is the sort of impression, we would submit, that it is
49 likely to have made on the ordinary reasonable reader. It
50 is a question of impression. In the case of this
51 particular leaflet, one might even say that it was a
52 question of impact. I am going to come back to the
53 leaflet, not in the sort of detail I did when we argued
54 about the proposed amendment, but certainly to draw some
55 points to your Lordship's attention in support of my
56 submission that it is really the impact of this leaflet,
57 this particular part of the leaflet, which leads to that
58 rather stark conclusion for which we contend and which one
59 sees in Drake J.'s judgment there.
60
