Day 097 - 06 Mar 95 - Page 18
1 that I was on a different planet because -----
2
3 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am going to stop you there, because it may
4 well be that the Defendants have taken longer than a member
5 of the Bar would. There are some witnesses, like Dr. Gomez
6 Gonzalez, who are their only possible entry by
7 cross-examination into the further information which the
8 Court of Appeal said they were entitled to seek by
9 cross-examination. So, whether or not Dr. Gomez Gonzalez
10 might have been cross-examined in two or three days rather
11 than five or six, it was clearly going to take some time to
12 cross-examine him.
13
14 I wonder whether the best thing, I think before a schedule
15 is made out a list of your witnesses should be made up and
16 I should ask Mr. Morris and Ms. Steel to give some
17 indication on the list so we have a kind of schedule of
18 what sort of length of time they think will be required to
19 cross-examine. Then I can look at it and remind myself of
20 what the witnesses have to say.
21
22 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, they are conveniently set out in the
23 index.
24
25 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, I read them through this morning.
26
27 MR. RAMPTON: Yes. One needs only to have the index in one hand
28 and the witness bundle in the other hand, and one can see
29 very clearly what they deal with because they all to be
30 called to deal with allegations made either in the
31 Defendants' pleading or in their witness statements
32 starting, that is, at section E and going through to the
33 end of section F, that is 19 witnesses, in fact. I would
34 have thought it would be wholly beneficial to the case.
35
36 I now welcome the idea that your Lordship should begin to
37 encourage the Defendants at the least by perhaps a little
38 bit more than homilies, which I know your Lordship does not
39 like, to confine their cross-examination to matters that
40 are, truly speaking, in issue and of importance in the
41 case.
42
43 My Lord, I do say this about the employment question:
44 I have taken the view myself (and it may turn at the end of
45 the case that I am completely wrong about it) that what
46 your Lordship will be concerned with at the end of the case
47 is not whether it be true that Mr. X, the manager, once
48 said something nasty to Mr. Y, the employee, or Miss Y, but
49 whether overall the picture of McDonald's employment
50 practices is one which is creditable or discreditable.
51
52 Given the number of employees that they have, it would not
53 be in the least bit surprising to any sane person that
54 there should from time to time be this, that or the other
55 dispute between employees and employers. It would be
56 wholely unique if it were not so.
57
58 One of the reasons why I welcome your Lordship's idea that,
59 perhaps, the Defendants' witnesses in this section of the
60 case, what I call the specific section, should go first is
