Day 262 - 13 Jun 96 - Page 78
1 transcript almost off by heart now.
2
3 MR. RAMPTON: That is fine.
4
5 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Because what it said there was that there is
6 no obligation on a party to disclose matter which is
7 irrelevant, and if documents are disclosed, parts of which
8 are blanked out on the grounds of irrelevance, not on the
9 grounds of privilege, then the only question is whether
10 there is some reason to suppose that they do contain some
11 matter which is relevant or was subject to the rider that
12 you are not entitled to blank out matters on the grounds of
13 irrelevance if it would make it difficult to understand
14 what is left or if it would make what is left misleading.
15
16 MR. HALL: Yes. I, of course, accept that. However, in the
17 Great Atlantic Insurance v. Home Insurance case there were
18 five questions which the court sought to answer. They were
19 on the issue of privilege.
20
21 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not think privilege relates to the
22 blanked out parts of the documents because that is not the
23 basic -- it is not suggested they are privileged. But we
24 do not even get to the question of whether privilege would
25 bite, it is said, because they are not disclosable because
26 they are not relevant.
27
28 MR. HALL: As I understood it, privilege was claimed in relation
29 to all the documents. This is the point I raised at the
30 beginning.
31
32 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, privilege is not claimed in relation to
33 the notes which have, in fact, been disclosed. However,
34 even though privilege is not claimed in respect of any part
35 of them, parts of them have been blanked out because it is
36 said they are not relevant.
37
38 MR. HALL: As I understood it originally, privilege was being
39 claimed in relation to all documents, but in relation to
40 the notes that have been disclosed and reports privilege
41 had been waived.
42
43 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, but therefore there is no privilege any
44 longer.
45
46 MR. HALL: Yes.
47
48 MR. RAMPTON: I entirely accept that if, as in Great Atlantic
49 Insurance, any of those notes, any pages of those notes
50 that have been disclosed had contained relevant
51 information, the waiver would have extended to the whole
52 document.
53
54 MS. STEEL: Which was exactly the opposite of what he said the
55 other day when I said this point.
56
57 MR. HALL: Yes. Perhaps I could rely upon this authority in
58 those circumstances as an analogy in relation to the
59 argument concerning relevance and those blanked out
60 passages.
