Day 312 - 11 Dec 96 - Page 38


     
     1
     2   MR. MORRIS:  Yes, have a read.  (Pause).
     3
     4   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Well, when I get to the bottom at page 8,
     5        I do not think Mr. Rampton has persisted in any objection,
     6        but whoever wrote this wrote it as if he or she were you,
     7        Ms. Steel, and you, Mr. Morris.
     8
     9   MR. MORRIS:  It is for us.
    10
    11   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It is done for you?
    12
    13   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.
    14
    15   MR. JUSTICE BELL: By all means, I have read that, but I was
    16        entirely familiar with what Lord Keith said and also the
    17        parts quoted from Mr. Justice French because I have read
    18        them.  This is the report of the two cases?
    19
    20   MR. MORRIS:  Right, I will not-----
    21
    22   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You just add anything which you want to
    23        stress yourself.
    24
    25   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.
    26
    27   MS. STEEL:   Can I say, in respect of what you just said and
    28        just about the bits that are blanked out, if-----
    29
    30   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I am not concerned with those, you need not
    31        explain them at all.
    32
    33   MS. STEEL:  No, no, but there was just like one bit which by way
    34        of example, on page 3 the bit that is blanked out, the note
    35        said, 'was it a surprise to you', i.e. as a surprise that
    36        most people that corporations can sue for defamation, and
    37        obviously it was a surprise to us, we had absolutely no
    38        idea, so...
    39
    40   MR. MORRIS:  It was.
    41
    42   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Life is full of surprises.  It does not
    43        necessarily help me to decide what the law is.  Yes.
    44
    45   MR. MORRIS:  Right.  So, on page 2 of that document we have just
    46        looked at we say that it is up to the Plaintiffs to
    47        prove...  Well, in arguing against our point here that
    48        multi-national Corporations should not be allowed to sue
    49        for libel, that it is a pressing social need that they be
    50        allowed to do so, and that in that same paragraph the
    51        balancing act exercised that was required to balance the
    52        protection of reputation and rights of others, which we
    53        have already indicated anyway in our earlier arguments, is
    54        not a strict balancing exercise of six of one and half a
    55        dozen of the other because the weight of the balance should
    56        be towards the protection of the public's rights.
    57
    58        That balancing exercise was done in the Derbyshire case,
    59        and it was not a question of the public authority's right
    60        being balanced against the public's right to criticise and

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