Day 158 - 19 Jul 95 - Page 05
1 decided there should not be any Legal Aid for defamation,
2 therefore, that would mean that they would not want the
3 judge to exercise his powers of discretion to pay out of
4 public funds for transcripts, which is an absolutely
5 ludicrous argument, because Parliament may have decided and
6 he should have brought the debate in Parliament, or
7 whatever, that led to that decision if he wanted to draw
8 that conclusion, but Parliament could quite easily have
9 decided that it is just that defamation cases are extremely
10 long and expensive, and they do not have as much public
11 funds available as would be just.
12
13 However, the payment for transcripts is tiny compared to
14 the costs of these proceedings as a whole, and tiny
15 compared to Legal Aid, which of course is mainly spent on
16 the wages of the firms that employ people for Legal Aid,
17 which would not apply in this case.
18
19 Then he said, further to that, that the transcripts were a
20 minor tool compared to Legal Aid; and, therefore, the
21 implication is: what could it possibly benefit us, because
22 if we are saying it is unfair, we ought to be legally aided
23 (which would be an enormous help), but as we cannot get
24 Legal Aid, then what it could possibly benefit us to have
25 the transcripts -- which is another, we would say,
26 illogical argument, because if it benefits to have the
27 transcripts, then that is one thing; if it benefits us to
28 have Legal Aid 20 times over, then that would be an
29 argument for Legal Aid to be available for such cases. We
30 do agree with Mr. Rampton on that, that it would be helpful
31 if that did exist, but it does not.
32
33 He did not say that Article 6 did not apply. He said he
34 was not certain that Article 6 applied. We say that
35 Article 6 does apply.
36
37 The references to our application before for Legal Aid
38 applied to the situation at that time regarding access to
39 Legal Aid. The fact that the European Commission decided
40 from the situation at that time, on the subject of
41 Legal Aid, it was clear that we would not be successful,
42 does not mean that in the middle of the trial, considering
43 the length and the detail of the discussions that we are
44 having on transcripts and the increasing imbalance of
45 resources -- at that time there seemed to be the most
46 persuasive thing that Europe was considering, the fact that
47 we put up a tenacious defence. But it is not just enough
48 to put a tenacious defence; you also have to physically be
49 able to mount that defence throughout the trial, which is
50 another situation, especially considering the length of
51 these proceedings and the detail and the availability of
52 transcripts, which are a simple matter for us to have
53 copies of. It cannot possibly be fair or equal that
54 transcripts that are available are being withheld from us,
55 by whatever means they are being withheld from us, or
56 denied to us.
57
58 Mr. Rampton referred to Airey v. Ireland, saying that --
59 well, as I understood the case as well, it was about that
60 there was a possibility that someone without Legal Aid
