Day 307 - 27 Nov 96 - Page 03

     
     1
     2   MR. RAMPTON:   My Lord, that is entirely my experience.
     3
     4   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   One does not have a sort of switch at a
     5        certain stage where the Defendants are treated as
     6        Plaintiffs because they have a counterclaim.
     7
     8   MR. RAMPTON:   Not at all.  The more particularly so where, as
     9        your Lordship has observed several times and I respectfully
    10        agree, the counterclaim is in most senses at least merely a
    11        mirror in some sense of the main claim.
    12
    13   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Yes.  Having said that, what I have in mind
    14        is this:  there are aspects in relation to your clients'
    15        response to the counterclaim which have been well trodden
    16        in previous cases.
    17
    18   MR. RAMPTON:   In relation to -----
    19
    20   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Not, perhaps, as entirely simple as some of
         the issues -- I do not mean necessarily simple to decide,
    22        but simple to delineate and see.  I am particularly
    23        thinking of the qualified privilege and the express malice
    24        response to that.  What would seem fair to me, so I give
    25        you an opportunity to address me on it, I think that
    26        Ms. Steel and Mr. Morris must go ahead with what they have
    27        to say on the counterclaim, but I will listen receptively
    28        to any application they make, after you have addressed me,
    29        to respond, not only on matters of law but in relation to
    30        the counterclaim.  If I do that, I will put a strict limit
    31        of time on how much time they have available.  Do you have
    32        anything to say about that?
    33
    34   MR. RAMPTON:   No, I have nothing.
    35
    36   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Then I will allow you to come back again.
    37
    38   MR. RAMPTON:   I have nothing to say about it at all.  So long
    39        as everything is put to bed in reasonable time, then I have
    40        nothing to say about that.  It is quite clear, when one
         looks at the authorities on qualified privilege which is
    42        often intimately related to the counter allegation of
    43        malice, in a case like this it is very difficult to
    44        disentangle the law from the facts.
    45
    46   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, indeed.
    47
    48   MR. RAMPTON:  So I have absolutely no objection to that course.
    49
    50   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Did you want to say anything further, 
    51        Ms. Steel? 
    52 
    53   MS. STEEL:  Yes, I did.  Before I say anything, I would like to
    54        ask, the first thing that you said -- it was at page 1,
    55        line 43.  You said:  "I mean, the burden of proof, in fact,
    56        in large parts of this case is on the Defendants".
    57
    58   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Yes.
    59
    60   MS. STEEL:   Did you mean in large parts of the counterclaim?