Day 087 - 10 Feb 95 - Page 29
1 have 21 days to do it in and I cannot abridge the time, or
2 maybe I can abridge time; you might think I can.
3
4 MR. RAMPTON: I think your Lordship does have a power under the
5 rules to abridge as to extend time. If your Lordship is
6 even beginning to think about that, I have an awful lot to
7 say about time when the Civil Evidence Act notice was
8 served.
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We will come back to that in a moment. The
11 other hurdle in your way at the moment, which you again may
12 be able to get over, is that, while not having decided the
13 matter, the authorities which Mr. Rampton has got in his
14 bundle are pretty persuasive that you are not entitled to
15 call evidence in relation to a fact upon which you base
16 your case, or facts upon which you base your case for which
17 you have pleaded and which have then been admitted by the
18 other side. It is for that reason that I have urged you to
19 consider whether you wish to plead additional facts. Then
20 you can see if those are admitted. If you use the PLH
21 statement to take from it each allegation of fact upon
22 which you say you would want to rely, and then say, "Under
23 that part of our pleading which refers to Preston which is
24 admitted, we would like paragraphs A to X as follows, these
25 allegations of fact in the PLHS report", then I would
26 consider that.
27
28 Do you want to deal now with the question of abridgement of
29 time for a counter notice? I think I said, too hastily,
30 that I could not shorten the 21 days. There are rules
31 which apply generally which allow for abridgement of
32 periods of time or extension of periods of time in certain
33 circumstances.
34
35 MR. MORRIS: Yes. Whatever would help to get the case moving as
36 quickly as possible really. I could put up a case for why
37 it should be abridged. I think we all know the reason.
38
39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I will hear Mr. Rampton first. What is the
40 difficulty about ----
41
42 MR. RAMPTON: Again, I know your Lordship must be absolutely fed
43 up with hearing me grumbling about the conduct of the
44 Defendants, but there is again a principle here. I do not
45 know how long the Defendants have had that report. It must
46 be months and months. It is certainly since before the
47 trial began. They have known perfectly well about the
48 Civil Evidence Act notices for a very long time, not least
49 because we have served Civil Evidence Act notices in
50 respect of literally hundreds of documents. That they
51 should now demand as of right that we should have less time
52 than we are, on the face of it, entitled to under the
53 rules, it does seem to me a most undignified and offensive
54 way of proceeding.
55
56 That said, if your Lordship thinks that it would assist the
57 ordinary conduct of the case that we should do it within,
58 let us say, two weeks, we do need to have time to think
59 about it (and there is much else to do in this case),
60 rather than three, then so be it. I repeat what I said
