Day 311 - 06 Dec 96 - Page 61
1
2 They have got their legal submissions and I am not going to
3 be particular, as I indicated some time ago, as to whether
4 they are strictly responding to new material which you have
5 brought in or just putting legal points generally, and
6 finally they may want to put in written submissions,
7 principally further references to transcripts or documents,
8 on issues of fact.
9
10 The question is: what sort of timetable we should have for
11 that.
12
13 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I cannot deal with that. All I have to
14 say is the time is now getting a bit tight. I am
15 desperately anxious we should, as your Lordship, I know,
16 is, although you might not use those words, to finish the
17 case this term.
18
19 MR. JUSTICE BELL: At the moment I do not see any risk of not
20 doing so. It is a question of just how we fix the dates.
21
22 So, what is the position? You can address me on any of
23 those matters this afternoon if you want. I suggest, in
24 fact, it might be better to leave it until Monday unless
25 there is -- or not necessarily Monday, but leave it over
26 unless there is something you do want to say.
27
28 MR. MORRIS: Right. Well, I mean, the honest situation is,
29 although we have had some legal volunteers who had looked
30 into some of the legal matters that we said we would be
31 bringing up, which we identified in the schedule of our
32 closing submissions before we started, the reality is that
33 we have not had time to chase things up and check them and
34 amend them, or whatever. This weekend we are going to do
35 that job and, as like everything else, it has all been left
36 to the last minute because we have had continual pressure.
37
38 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Tell me when you think you will have them
39 word-processed up.
40
41 MR. MORRIS: I was saying to Helen at lunchtime we would like to
42 make a submission to do the legal matters at the beginning
43 of next term, and we did not think it would make much
44 progress if we made that application.
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, it would not.
47
48 MR. MORRIS: That would be, honestly, what we would require to
49 do, you know, a 30 per cent good job compared to the
50 Plaintiffs' side, because of their experience and
51 resources.
52
53 So, it may be thought, well, it does not matter, it is just
54 a few legal points and Mr. Rampton has given the court the
55 benefit of his experience, but because of the adversarial
56 system we have in this country, obviously, Mr. Rampton has
57 coloured and interpreted the law as favourably as possible
58 for his clients, which is only to be expected.
59
60 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not think he has.
