Day 158 - 19 Jul 95 - Page 45


     
     1        on board -- one cannot separate little bits of a leaflet
     2        like this off and try to pretend that they can be read out
     3        of context.
     4
     5        The contribution to the major ecological catastrophe and
     6        the forcing of tribal peoples in the rain forest off their
     7        ancestral territories is, we will submit at the end of the
     8        case -- and for this purpose submit now -- unarguably a
     9        consequence, according to this leaflet, of the fact
    10        (alleged fact) that McDonald's are using lethal poisons to
    11        destroy vast areas of Central American rain forest to
    12        create grazing pastures for cattle, and so on and so
    13        forth.
    14
    15        I do, therefore, ask what conceivable real relevance or
    16        importance this new paragraph 1 could have as a defence of
    17        justification, that is substantial truth, to what we see
    18        there written in that leaflet?
    19
    20   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  This would apply equally to Guatemala and
    21        Costa Rica, would it not?
    22
    23   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, it probably does.  But I am faced now with a
    24        plea two-thirds of the way through the case.  I have made
    25        my discovery in relation to Guatemala and Costa Rica.  I do
    26        not have to face that problem again.  It has all been dealt
    27        with.  Indeed, I think I have probably made all the
    28        discovery in relation to Brazil.  But I do not want to have
    29        to go down that road if I do not want to.  I certainly do
    30        not want to have go down that road for the rest of the
    31        world, under paragraph 2, unless I absolutely have to.
    32
    33   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I understand absolutely your point on
    34        paragraph 2.  What is troubling me at the moment is whether
    35        it is not a bit unreal to have Guatemala and Costa Rica in
    36        and Brazil out.  The evidence on any one of them may be no
    37        weaker or stronger than in relation to the other.  You may,
    38        at the end of the day, have a good point, but the actual
    39        sting here is actually directly wiping out large tracts of
    40        forest, which the Defendants do not even seek to justify.
    41
    42   MR. RAMPTON:  No, they do not.
    43
    44   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  But let us suppose -- well, I really have
    45        expressed what troubles me.  If Guatemala and Costa Rica
    46        are in, on the basis that it is at least arguable for the
    47        time being, can one separate -----
    48
    49   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, I think one probably can.  Can I turn that
    50        round?  I am not saying this is my principal argument, but 
    51        it does seem to me at this stage of the case the position 
    52        is different from what it might have been at the beginning 
    53        of the case, where Guatemala and Costa Rica have always
    54        been.  By the good offices of Master Grant (now, alas,
    55        deceased), the pleading was eventually refined into the
    56        poor little rump that it is now.
    57
    58        If your Lordship says to me: "Oh, well, you could have
    59        applied to strike that out on the basis that no reasonable
    60        jury could have found what is now pleaded as a meaning for

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