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.

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