Day 147 - 04 Jul 95 - Page 04

     
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     2   MR. RAMPTON:  My inhibition is really only this, that I, in the
     3        course of interlocutory -----
     4
     5   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I think I said there is no reason why that
     6        should not be in public.  That is what I meant to say.
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     8   MR. RAMPTON:  My inhibition is this, that in normal cases where
     9        one is dealing with matters of discovery -- which one is to
    10        some considerable extent -- and further and better
    11        particulars and the question of whether an order should or
    12        should not remain, the proceedings are held in chambers, as
    13        your Lordship knows, perhaps for the very good reason that
    14        the discussion is, on the whole, provisional or preliminary
    15        in character.  The Defendants are apt to make allegations
    16        about McDonald's failure to make proper discovery -- all of
    17        which so far have been unfounded, in our submission -- but
    18        they are apt to make them.  I do not particularly want
    19        those made in public.
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         I do not in the least bit mind if your Lordship should give
    22        judgment on those matters in open court, because then the
    23        public can see whether or not the kind of wild allegations
    24        which the Defendants are apt to make have any substance.
    25
    26        What I am not anxious is that on an interlocutory matter,
    27        whether it is in the course of a trial or before a trial,
    28        whether it is before a trial or in the course of a trial, a
    29        hearing about whether or not certain documents should be
    30        disclosed, whether or not certain further particulars
    31        should be given, is necessarily provisional and preliminary
    32        in character until the court has made its decision.
    33
    34        If your Lordship, having come to a conclusion, should
    35        say:  "In my view, the Defendants are perfectly right:
    36        McDonald's should have disclosed this, that or the other",
    37        so be it.  That, I am quite content with.  The public is
    38        entitled to know that.  What the public is not entitled to
    39        know, in my respectful submission, is what the parties say
    40        about those matters until your Lordship has made a decision
         on these interlocutory matters.
    42
    43   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What is the difference, for instance, between
    44        that situation and where you have a voir dire in a criminal
    45        case where, for instance, allegations (which later turn out
    46        to be unfounded) are put to a witness, which the jury does
    47        not hear and the judge has to decide about it?
    48
    49   MR. RAMPTON:  Of course; and the public is usually not included
    50        from such voir dire.  What the judge will often do in such 
    51        cases -- rightly, in most cases, because he is afraid the 
    52        jury will be infected, and he cannot allow that -- what the 
    53        judge will often do is make a reporting restriction.
    54
    55   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  The purpose of making reporting restrictions
    56        is not so that the public should not know; it is so that
    57        the jury should not read about them.  The reporting
    58        restrictions, save in the most exceptional cases, only last
    59        until a final verdict, do they not?
    60