Day 164 - 26 Sep 95 - Page 19
1 inspection in court. I do not want to spend a week at
2 their offices -- in fact, I do not want to spend five
3 minutes in their offices -- inspecting a document
4 which ------
5
6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What is being put to you is that you may have
7 to if you want to see this at all, you see. If you think
8 I have a power to order McDonald's to bring it to court
9 -----
10
11 MR. MORRIS: I think that the court has an inherent jurisdiction
12 that -- I mean, McDonald's are claiming this is a once-off
13 situation because of the length or the security part of
14 this document they do not want us to see. I think they
15 should check if there are copies of the documents that are
16 loose-leafed or that the section could be removed. I do
17 not really see what they are complaining about. Are they
18 complaining about the costs? Are they complaining about
19 the security section? Or are they complaining about the
20 large number of pages?
21
22 It seems to me they are throwing up a smoke screen to
23 obstruct our right to discovery. They have been ordered to
24 disclose the document. I think if they are going to bring
25 in administrative tricks to try to make our job more
26 difficult, then if they are allowed to do that and if that
27 is accepted that is a legal right and the judge has no
28 discretion, then time will have to be set aside from court
29 time for us to do the increasing work.
30
31 I think this is an administrative trick by the Plaintiffs.
32 It is a precursor of other administrative tricks which are
33 likely to be brought in to make our lives more difficult,
34 in fact, as difficult as possible as the case goes on.
35
36 I do not know what the powers of the courts are. The court
37 does have an inherent jurisdiction to make sure that the
38 parties do not suffer in administrative terms. I think
39 that also discovery normally happens before trial and there
40 is normally a great deal of time for things like
41 inspection, if they are needed, for large documents before
42 copies are provided. We are in the middle of the trial
43 and, therefore, the time is not available for those kinds
44 of things.
45
46 If it is a book and there is some problem with us seeing
47 the security section, I do not see any problem with them
48 bringing it to court. We can say: "OK, we will have quick
49 look; we will not look at the security section, we will
50 look at the other sections and say: 'Yes, we would like
51 those sections' or 'No, we do not want those sections'." I
52 do not really think it is a problem. It would just take 10
53 minutes probably.
54
55 MR. RAMPTON: Can I tell your Lordship what I believe -----
56
57 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Since this is maybe a squabble, but it has to
58 be decided according to the law, I will hear if Ms. Steel
59 wants to add anything and then I will hear you in reply.
60
