Day 182 - 02 Nov 95 - Page 03

     
     1
     2        The second thing is this: when we come to questions of law,
     3        I have grave doubt as to whether Mr. Jenssen, no matter how
     4        much he may know about Norwegian employment law, can give
     5        me admissible evidence about it.  It is not just a
     6        technical problem, and it is not one I can run away from,
     7        because there are rules of evidence in this country as to
     8        how you prove what foreign law is; and it requires the
     9        evidence of an expert in foreign law.  No matter how well
    10        acquainted with it he is, unless Mr. Jenssen is a qualified
    11        Norwegian lawyer, it would not be evidence that I can
    12        accept.
    13
    14        I mention it not to put difficulties in your way, but just
    15        to explain that if I accepted that what Mr. Jenssen said
    16        was the position under Norwegian employment law, if
    17        I worked on that basis, I would be making a finding I was
    18        absolutely unentitled to make on the material put before
    19        me; and if it was on a crucial point, McDonald's would
    20        have, if it ever came to it, a copper bottom ground of
         appeal in relation to that finding.
    22
    23   MR. MORRIS:  I think -----
    24
    25   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  All I am saying this for is to bear it in
    26        mind.
    27
    28   MR. MORRIS:  I understand that.
    29
    30   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  My caution, my anxiety, may be entirely
    31        misplaced because we may never come to that situation.
    32
    33   MR. MORRIS:  I think this was something that was obviously going
    34        to arise.  We just felt it was better to have the official
    35        statutes and the agreements available, that it would help.
    36        If anything, it would help Mr. Jenssen refresh his memory
    37        to the detail.
    38
    39   MR. RAMPTON:  I am not sure that is admissible, you see.  The
    40        trouble is, this being an adversarial proceeding, there is
         no obligation on a party who discloses documents to have
    42        them translated -- none at all.  When it comes to giving
    43        evidence, if they are to form part of the case -- and as
    44        soon as a witness looks at a document in a foreign language
    45        to refresh his memory while giving evidence, they do become
    46        part of the case -- I am at a disadvantage because I do not
    47        know what it means.
    48
    49   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What I think the best thing to do is see how
    50        we go, but I may have to just put out of my mind parts of 
    51        Mr. Jenssen's evidence if they are based or arise from 
    52        documents which remain in Norwegian.  That is all. 
    53
    54   MR. MORRIS:  Right.
    55
    56   MR. JUSTICE BELL: If he gives his evidence, and one takes stock
    57        at the end of the day, the occasions where that happens may
    58        be small in relation to the overall thrust of his evidence,
    59        and it may not matter anyway.
    60