Day 237 - 18 04 96 - Page 60
1 article, which is much the equivalent of what Mr. Cesca was
2 doing, which needs to be translated, you have to give a bit
3 of thought to it in advance. I mean, it may very well be
4 that when you go through Miss Watson's evidence you find
5 you are not referring to parts of the articles which are in
6 Portuguese.
7
8 MS. STEEL: I do not know what the situation is with
9 Miss Watson's articles, about how much of them she is going
10 to be referring to or anything, but actually I have just
11 remembered that there are quite a number of documents,
12 letters from suppliers in McDonald's rainforest bundles
13 which have not been translated.
14
15 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The bottom line is this. At the end of the
16 day, I cannot rely on anything which is not in English
17 unless I have an agreed translation of it ---
18
19 MS. STEEL: Yes.
20
21 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- obviously. There are one or two European
22 languages which I can read to some extent, but even then, I
23 am not going to rely upon what I can read because I might
24 get it wrong in a vital particular. So, if there is
25 anything which is important on either side, we do need an
26 agreed translation. I mean, so far we have not come to
27 grief on it. I remember Dr. Gomez Gonzalez translating
28 something which was in Spanish.
29
30 MR. RAMPTON: For anybody who has a vaguely romance language
31 knowledge, whether it be classical languages or French or
32 Italian, a short passage in a non-technical document does
33 not present a problem.
34
35 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I agree except I offered a translation of
36 something in Spanish and it turned out to be completely
37 wrong.
38
39 MR. RAMPTON: And I offered one of something in Portuguese.
40
41 MR. JUSTICE BELL: And Mr. Cesca offered a translation and that
42 turned out to be completely wrong as well.
43
44 MR. RAMPTON: I agree, but if there is an important document
45 that we rely on -- none of them is of any length at all; I
46 think there are four lines in Spanish in one of the
47 suppliers ------
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: All I say, the bottom line is if, at the end
50 of the day, I do not have an agreed translation of
51 something which is said by one side or the other to be
52 important, I am bound out of safety just to say, since I
53 cannot be confident of what the true translation is, I
54 really cannot pay any attention to it. So, if there are
55 any vital documents, or extracts from documents, which are
56 not in English, before the end of the evidence some attempt
57 has to be made to get an agreed translation. I do not
58 think it is my job to go through saying, "Well, I might
59 think that is important. Have you agreed a translation of
60 that?" It is really for the parties.
60
