Day 157 - 18 Jul 95 - Page 40


     
     1        assured that your recollection about fair and accurate
     2        reports is correct.  I merely mention paragraph 607 of
     3        Gattley on page 259 and it says:  "An abridged or condensed
     4        report of judicial proceedings must, however, be fair, not
     5        garbled so as to produce misrepresentation, nor by
     6        suppression of some portion of the evidence giving an
     7        entirely false and unjust impression to the prejudice of
     8        one of the parties concerned.  A report which accurately
     9        sets out one part of the proceedings and omits another
    10        which gives a different complexion to the whole case will
    11        not be privileged.  It is not enough to report part of the
    12        proceedings correctly if by leaving out other parts you
    13        thereby create a false impression."
    14
    15        My Lord, that is (and always has been) our starting point.
    16        As your Lordship knows, we have been concerned about this
    17        problem (as we see it) since before Christmas, I think it
    18        was, last year when I first mentioned it.  We wrote to the
    19        Defendants again in March.  So now, finally, our patience
    20        has run out and with it our generosity in a sense that we
    21        are no longer willing to pay for the Defendants to misuse
    22        the transcripts in the way suggested in that paragraph in
    23        Gattley.
    24
    25        My Lord, may I start with the allegation the Defendants
    26        make or the assertion the Defendants make that your
    27        Lordship has some kind of power (and I shall be very brief)
    28        to cure what the Defendants see as an unfairness in our
    29        refusal to go on paying for them to exploit the transcripts
    30        in the way that I have described.
    31
    32        As far as I can tell (and if I could tell otherwise I would
    33        be bound to tell your Lordship), the English court has no
    34        express power to order McDonald's to pay for the Defendants
    35        to have transcripts.  As far as we can tell -- by "we"
    36        I mean me and Mr. Atkinson and our solicitors -- the whole
    37        extent of the power of the English court at first instance
    38        is contained in and implied by Rule 1 of Ord. 68.
    39
    40        That gives the parties, as your Lordship knows, to the
    41        action certain rights.  It also provides the possibility
    42        that a stranger to the action may acquire a transcript.  As
    43        we see it, the court's function in relation to Ord. 68, r.
    44        1, would simply be to ensure that the rights conferred
    45        under Ord. 68, r. 1, were not denied to any of the persons
    46        concerned who would be the parties and any third party who
    47        might on proper grounds apply for a transcript.
    48
    49        Nor, my Lord, have we found any express power in the
    50        English court to order payment for transcripts out of 
    51        public funds, except in relation to impoverished 
    52        respondents to appeals, not even, one notices from Rule 5 
    53        of Ord. 68, impoverished Defendants.
    54
    55        That being so, any kind of an inferential suggestion that
    56        there was some kind of inherent power in the court, a kind
    57        of omnipotence really, I believe, is what Defendants are
    58        suggesting, either to pull McDonald's purse strings or the
    59        Lord Chancellor's in order to provide payment for the
    60        transcripts really is not available.  One only has to

Prev Next Index