Day 136 - 16 Jun 95 - Page 28
1 might, when Mr. Rampton has had a moment to think about
2 that, either on the Friday afternoon or the Monday
3 afternoon talk a little more about scheduling.
4
5 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, the only other thing I would say is this:
6 If your Lordship is proposing (and I would welcome the
7 idea) dealing with, at any rate, most of the outstanding
8 interlocutory items when Mr. Stein has finished, that is to
9 say, either towards the end of the week beginning 26th or
10 the beginning of the following week, 3rd July, it would be
11 necessary, I would submit, that the Defendants should
12 prepare a list of the topics that they want dealt with. It
13 is item 3 in part in the agenda which we supplied the other
14 day to your Lordship.
15
16 If there is an application for discovery to be made by the
17 Defendants, that they should not simply say: "Application
18 for discovery". They should, as one normally must,
19 identify the particular document they want and -- this is
20 particularly important so that one should know where to
21 look -- what its stated relevance is in relation to an
22 issue which arises either on the pleadings or from one of
23 their witness statements; otherwise what happens is they
24 bring up the documents in court, we have no notice of it
25 and everybody goes scurrying around to find out whether, in
26 fact, it has already been disclosed or dealt with in an
27 affidavit or whatever.
28
29 What I am asking for, without an affidavit, is the sort of
30 schedule which one would normally get from a solicitor on
31 an application for specific discovery under Ord. 24 r. 7.
32
33 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do your best to give as much information as
34 you can about the applications. Can I just -----
35
36 MS. STEEL: We did say the other day we were in the process of
37 compiling a list, so I do not know why Mr. Rampton -----
38
39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: There we are. I remember that. The position
40 so for as interlocutory applications which you are making
41 is this: As I have said before, it is up to you to make
42 the application. I cannot decide something until you do
43 make the application. I think it would be a good idea --
44 in fact, I think everyone is agreed -- to get on and decide
45 as much of the outstanding interlocutory matters as one can
46 as soon as Mr. Stein has finished his evidence.
47
48 MS. STEEL: I just wanted to ask something which is when you
49 were talking about our witnesses might not be available in
50 October -- this is something that Mr. Rampton brought up a
51 while ago as well -- basically it is about the summer
52 break, I mean, has a decision been made on -- is it going
53 to be the standard summer break? Is that the assumption
54 now?
55
56 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is at the moment. If any party wants to
57 consider sitting during some part, for instance, of the
58 second half of September, I will certainly consider that.
59 I would like you to think about it. If you found, for
60 instance -- I do not know whether it possible to do it; the
