Day 311 - 06 Dec 96 - Page 63
1 benefit.
2
3 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What are you asking for? You have had the
4 bulk of Mr. Rampton's legal submissions at least since
5 early October. There has been some elaboration, and there
6 has been some extension, but you have had the bulk of them
7 since then, in writing.
8
9 MR. MORRIS: I think the situation is that to do an effective
10 job we would need the beginning of next term, but I am
11 hesitant to actually ask for that because I know there is
12 no chance of getting it. So, I think that we would leave
13 it in your hands to rule when we should -- we are not
14 ready. We are going to spend this whole weekend, night and
15 day, trying to draw together legal points of which there
16 could, intentionally, be thousands but, obviously, we will
17 concentrate on ten to 15 matters that we are capable of
18 doing in that time. We will do our best, basically.
19
20 MS. STEEL: I think the more time we have the better it would
21 be, but that goes without saying.
22
23 MR. MORRIS: One useful thing is that, because of child care
24 problems, I can work better on weekdays and because we have
25 actually, effectively, been in court virtually continuously
26 for the last seven or eight weeks, apart from, I think,
27 three or four days, that has not left any time to kind of
28 catch up or even look into things that have cropped up
29 during the day.
30
31 So, it is difficult because there is very little time to
32 play with now in terms of this term, and I think a lot of
33 the problem is identifying what the legal matters are that
34 we should make submissions on, because as we have gone
35 through the case notes have been or have not been written
36 -- I have not got anyone doing notes for me -- it is as
37 much as I can to follow what is going on, let alone make
38 notes and then chase up on those notes to say that is
39 something I should have looked into, because when you look
40 at something from three or four months ago you think,
41 "Blimey, that was a really important point and it never
42 got followed up". So, a lot of the problem is even finding
43 the notes that have been made to find out what the issues
44 are that have been passed by. An example was today over
45 the -- Mr. Rampton had said, for example, that witness
46 statements could not be used as evidence in the case when
47 we applied to do it, and then when he wanted to do it he
48 was using -- he was trying to use as evidence something in
49 my witness statement, and I know that came out -----
50
51 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Subject to anything which Mr. Rampton
52 produces, I am in your favour on that. I think there is a
53 different situation, which I tried to explain, in my mind
54 at the moment so far as response to interrogatories is
55 concerned.
56
57 MR. MORRIS: Yes.
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I must make a decision on this, and what
60 I will direct is that you and Ms. Steel must start your
