Day 149 - 06 Jul 95 - Page 19
1 Force and, at the end of it, there is a note saying, "And
2 we all wish so and so a happy birthday", as it was his
3 birthday, his 50th anniversary or something, there is no
4 way that could possibly be relevant in this case. However,
5 if a matter was discussed at the Health and Safety Task
6 Force meeting in the minutes and the matter may itself not
7 be relevant to an issue in the case, the fact that it was
8 discussed at the meeting must be relevant, because we have
9 an entitlement to know what was discussed at the meeting,
10 the weight given to certain issues as opposed to other
11 issues.
12
13 So, all I am saying is that I just think that the spirit of
14 the ruling in the higher court, the Court of Appeal --
15 I cannot believe it would give carte blanche for a
16 disclosing party to wipe out any matter they feel like on
17 any document they feel like, unless the other party can
18 show that it must be relevant. I think that we have a
19 right; if a document is relevant, then the content of that
20 document is relevant, even if it does not go to an issue in
21 the case, unless it is clearly something which is
22 completely, you know -- do you see what I am saying?
23
24 If, for example, meetings of the Health and Safety Task
25 Force are relevant, the fact that it existed is relevant;
26 therefore, anything that goes to what was discussed at that
27 meeting must be relevant, even if they discussed something
28 that was not strictly an issue in this case. The fact that
29 it was discussed is relevant.
30
31 So, all I am saying is that the power or the right of a
32 party to blank out documents cannot be an unfettered power
33 or right. There must be some kind of, you know, common
34 sense brought into play. Otherwise, we could have 40,000
35 documents of which 95 per cent have blanking out; and I do
36 not believe that trials would function properly. That is
37 all I want to say.
38
39 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, since your Lordship has those documents
40 in front of you, may I start with these Health and Safety
41 documents and the blanking out? What we have done is what
42 we believe to be in accordance with the law as propounded
43 in that judgment in the Court of Appeal, which is this: we
44 have left in everything that is relevant to the issues in
45 the action; we have excluded, by blanking out, everything
46 which is irrelevant.
47
48 We have taken the view, for example -- and that this
49 accounts for a large amount of the blanking out -- that
50 discussion of customer safety is of no relevance to the
51 action, and that will be removed.
52
53 We went from there to the following principles, that the
54 Company's general attitude, approach and policies in
55 relation to employees' safety were relevant to the issues
56 in the action, and everything that expressly or impliedly
57 bears on that question has been left in.
58
59 We went from there to say to ourselves, beyond that
60 anything is relevant, matters of detail are relevant, which
