Day 036 - 13 Oct 94 - Page 43
1 they are.
2
3 MS. STEEL: We will argue this in due course with the meanings
4 part but -----
5
6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I appreciate that. You have not got to
7 argue it yet for a variety of reasons.
8
9 MS. STEEL: It is just that looking at transcripts of previous
10 occasion, it is quite clear that the Plaintiffs are
11 shifting the goalposts.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You say that, but we have not got to decide
14 it at this moment. We will have to decide fairly soon
15 whether they are allowed to amend their Statement of Claim
16 or not, and there are various points which will be argued
17 one way and the other on that. We cannot decide it at the
18 moment.
19
20 I am not saying it would not be possible to decide it at
21 the moment -- of course it would -- but we want to get
22 Dr. Barnard through the witness box; we want to get other
23 witnesses on this area through the witness box; you want
24 did take advice in relation to it and then we will argue
25 the point.
26
27 MS. STEEL: I am sorry then. We are just getting a bit
28 frustrated by the approach the Plaintiffs are taking.
29
30 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, I have no doubt it is very frustrating but,
31 my Lord, I do urge the Defendants through your Lordship to
32 grapple with this, that, as a matter of principle, their
33 defence of justification on any part of the case must be
34 apt to meet, if it is to succeed, that meaning which the
35 tribunal of fact rules or finds is the meaning which
36 ordinary readers of the words complained of would have
37 attached to it. And it is for that purpose we have been
38 cross-examining, for example, Dr. Barnard for a day and a
39 half.
40
41 MR. MORRIS: I was going to say a remark but it would be
42 unfair. But if I may say, without any disrespect, that is
43 one of the reason we wanted a jury because, if that is the
44 central point of the whole purpose of elongating this part
45 of the case, it is precisely -----
46
47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, I am going to stop you -- if you had a
48 jury you would not know, you would probably, in fact,
49 never know, just what meaning they attributed to certain
50 sets of words in the leaflet. So, when calling your
51 evidence and when cross-examining the other side's
52 witnesses, you would have to deal with it on the basis
53 that it could be any one of a variety of possible
54 meanings. So, far from shortening the case, if anything,
55 it would lengthen it. You would have to deal with all
56 possibilities so far as meaning is concerned. You are in
57 no worse position today -- you may be in a better one but
58 you are certainly not in a worse one so far as that is
59 concerned.
60
