Day 266 - 20 Jun 96 - Page 59


     
     1        Mr. Andrew Nicol, who is going to represent them at the
     2        Appeal has given an estimate for the Appeal, if leave
     3        should be given, of three hours.  However, it is not
     4        necessary that the proceedings will take the whole day.  If
     5        leave is not granted, then the hearing will be relatively
     6        short.
     7
     8   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  But the way these matters are dealt with as I
     9        understand it on a relatively short matter like this.
    10        Effectively the merits are argued, are they not?
    11
    12   MR. RAMPTON:  Sometimes; sometimes they are not.  It depends how
    13        interested the Court is.
    14
    15   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It may be because it was thought that there
    16        was some urgency in this case that they listed them
    17        together, but I thought that was very often my own
    18        experience anyway.  It is all relatively -- it is not going
    19        to be a long argument.  So they list them both so that if
    20        there is something which interests the Court of Appeal,
    21        they can deal with the whole matter in one day.
    22
    23   MR. RAMPTON:  Well, that leads me to the next thing which is, in
    24        a sense, it is none of my business because Lord Vesty is
    25        the defendant's witness.  It is up to them to deal with
    26        him, but in another sense it is entirely my business
    27        because it depends when he is coming back.  If one assumes
    28        that he does not come back before --- that is next
    29        Thursday.  Then we will have to come back at some later
    30        stage and we shall lose still further time.  If it should
    31        turn out that I have to ask your Lordship to postpone
    32        Professor Crawford -- I hope it will not but if it does --
    33        then it looks as though at any rate Wednesday and possibly
    34        Tuesday of next week are going to be blank.
    35
    36        Now the reason why Wednesday in the defendant's estimate is
    37        going to be blank is that for some reason which eludes me,
    38        they do not want to call their publication witnesses until
    39        after the appeal has been heard.  The reason I wrote to the
    40        Court of Appeal is that Mr. Andrew Nichol QC, who
    41        represents the defendants on that Appeal, sent a copy of a
    42        letter to me that he sent to the Registrar suggesting that
    43        the Appeal should brought on before the defendant's
    44        witnesses gave evidence because the witnesses would be
    45        giving evidence about their amendments to the statement of
    46        claim.
    47
    48   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   About?
    49
    50   MR. RAMPTON:  About the amendments to the Statement of Claim
    51        which are the matters of the subject of the proposed
    52        Appeal.  That is in fact a complete nonsense.  Their 
    53        evidence could not be affected by those amendments because
    54        your Lordship held that the factual matrix or basis for the
    55        amendments was exactly the same as had been in the case for
    56        a very long time.
    57
    58   MR. MORRIS:  Yes, and that is what we are appealing against.
    59
    60   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Let Mr. Rampton finish.

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