Day 266 - 20 Jun 96 - Page 59
1 Mr. Andrew Nicol, who is going to represent them at the
2 Appeal has given an estimate for the Appeal, if leave
3 should be given, of three hours. However, it is not
4 necessary that the proceedings will take the whole day. If
5 leave is not granted, then the hearing will be relatively
6 short.
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But the way these matters are dealt with as I
9 understand it on a relatively short matter like this.
10 Effectively the merits are argued, are they not?
11
12 MR. RAMPTON: Sometimes; sometimes they are not. It depends how
13 interested the Court is.
14
15 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It may be because it was thought that there
16 was some urgency in this case that they listed them
17 together, but I thought that was very often my own
18 experience anyway. It is all relatively -- it is not going
19 to be a long argument. So they list them both so that if
20 there is something which interests the Court of Appeal,
21 they can deal with the whole matter in one day.
22
23 MR. RAMPTON: Well, that leads me to the next thing which is, in
24 a sense, it is none of my business because Lord Vesty is
25 the defendant's witness. It is up to them to deal with
26 him, but in another sense it is entirely my business
27 because it depends when he is coming back. If one assumes
28 that he does not come back before --- that is next
29 Thursday. Then we will have to come back at some later
30 stage and we shall lose still further time. If it should
31 turn out that I have to ask your Lordship to postpone
32 Professor Crawford -- I hope it will not but if it does --
33 then it looks as though at any rate Wednesday and possibly
34 Tuesday of next week are going to be blank.
35
36 Now the reason why Wednesday in the defendant's estimate is
37 going to be blank is that for some reason which eludes me,
38 they do not want to call their publication witnesses until
39 after the appeal has been heard. The reason I wrote to the
40 Court of Appeal is that Mr. Andrew Nichol QC, who
41 represents the defendants on that Appeal, sent a copy of a
42 letter to me that he sent to the Registrar suggesting that
43 the Appeal should brought on before the defendant's
44 witnesses gave evidence because the witnesses would be
45 giving evidence about their amendments to the statement of
46 claim.
47
48 MR. JUSTICE BELL: About?
49
50 MR. RAMPTON: About the amendments to the Statement of Claim
51 which are the matters of the subject of the proposed
52 Appeal. That is in fact a complete nonsense. Their
53 evidence could not be affected by those amendments because
54 your Lordship held that the factual matrix or basis for the
55 amendments was exactly the same as had been in the case for
56 a very long time.
57
58 MR. MORRIS: Yes, and that is what we are appealing against.
59
60 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Let Mr. Rampton finish.
