Day 143 - 27 Jun 95 - Page 35
1 MR. MORRIS: I know Mr. Rampton is -- I am asking a hypothetical
2 question.
3
4 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, you cannot ask it because it is just
5 another way of putting in the contents of the document
6 which on its own is not admissible. You call someone from
7 a union who expresses that view, that may be one thing.
8
9 MR. MORRIS: You said Mr. Stein, in your evidence-in-chief
10 I believe -----
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can I just add one thing more? I am not
13 interested in whether it concerns Mr. Stein, it is what
14 concerns me at the end of the day. You have put your case
15 about whether Mr. Stein considers McDonald's is anti-union
16 or not and we have had a lot of evidence on that.
17
18 MR. MORRIS: Is it a fact that some trade unions in Britain
19 believe that you have a very anti-trade union attitude,
20 your Company? Is that a fact or not?
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do you know whether that is so or not?
23 A. No, I do not know.
24
25 MR. MORRIS: Would it concern you if they did think that?
26
27 MR. RAMPTON: Please, Mr. Morris, please. Even it if were so,
28 it would be wholly inadmissible and irrelevant to the
29 issues in this case.
30
31 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It certainly would not help me to a
32 conclusion.
33
34 MR. MORRIS: I would say that the best judges of whether an
35 organisation is anti-union are the trade unions because
36 they will be on the receiving end.
37
38 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Quite frankly, I do not accept that.
39 You might just as well say that the best judges of the
40 merits of this case are you, Ms. Steel and McDonald's
41 Corporation and the English Company. In fact, they are
42 not; I am within our constitution, and you must respect
43 that.
44
45 MR. MORRIS: In that case, if we ask -----
46
47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: When you come to your own witnesses, you can
48 ask them, subject to any argument from Mr. Rampton, what
49 their view of things is. You have got union witnesses. It
50 is not as if you have to scrape around because you do not
51 have a witness of your own.
52
53 MR. MORRIS: There were a few things here that I wanted to ask
54 you about.
55
56 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Deal with one and then we will break for the
57 mid-day adjournment. You can break now if you want to.
58
59 MR. MORRIS: Helen says she is starving so maybe we ought to
60 break now.
