Day 048 - 08 Nov 94 - Page 06
1 To the extent that we cooperated in making their life
2 easier, there are two reasons for that: one is because it
3 makes our life easier; and, secondly, it assists your
4 Lordship in the administration of justice. So to the
5 extent that your Lordship indicates this, that or the other
6 step ought or ought not to be taken to achieve that end,
7 then of course we do as your Lordship indicates. The
8 Defendants must understand that we owe them nothing in
9 point of cooperation, good will, or anything else.
10
11 MR. MORRIS: Then the converse would also apply.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The fact is, it is an adversarial system and
14 many cases are hard fought. Even in the hardest fought
15 cases, there has to be a certain amount of cooperation
16 because, like so many things in our constitution, the whole
17 business grinds to a halt if they are not.
18
19 All I will repeat is: if you feel uncomfortable by reason
20 of one pressure or another, you must express it to me.
21
22 MR. MORRIS: I spent two hours last night trying to photocopy
23 the material which I promised to give to the Plaintiffs
24 this morning. I did not complete it all. I have now given
25 it to the Plaintiffs to ask them to finish off photocopying
26 the rest of the material.
27
28 I just want to give that as an example. That was two hours
29 that I could not spend on preparing for today. I just
30 think that what is happening is, that the area of time to
31 prepare for each witness is getting shorter and shorter
32 each night, because -- I mean, say, for example, this week,
33 effectively, there are five different witnesses this week,
34 even though Mr. Miles is twice. It is a question of
35 restarting and checking what was said before. So I just
36 think there is only a limit, reasonably, that we can
37 actually keep up with that kind of pace. It is different
38 when it is one witness for four days; you know, that is
39 okay.
40
41 All I am saying is that, just so that the court realises
42 there is a physical limitation on what an individual can do
43 to prepare for his case the next day, especially when it
44 includes photocopying a large amount of documents, or
45 whatever, as well.
46
47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You must reserve the right, preferably at the
48 end of each day, to tell me if you feel under any
49 particular pressure and any particular difficulty. I
50 cannot say I will be able in any particular instance to
51 accommodate you, because I have got to do whatever I see to
52 be fair between the parties, but I will certainly listen
53 carefully to everything you wish to say and I will
54 obviously do my best to do something about it. You must
55 not hesitate to raise it. That is all I am saying.
56
57 You are ready to go ahead with Mr. Hawkes now, are you?
58
59 MS. STEEL: I have got a problem, actually. The computer screen
60 keeps blanking out.
