ANNEX: EXTRACT FROM THE JUDGMENT GIVEN
IN THE CHANCERY DIVISION OF THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN THE CASE
OF WEIR AND OTHERS V THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR TRANSPORT
AND OTHERS BEFORE MR JUSTICE LINDSAY
242. I add only this. I am quite sure that Mr Rowley,
questioning Mr Byers as he did, intended no inroad into Parliamentary
privilege; no objection had been raised to the questions as he
asked them and the relevant authorities had by then not even been
collected let alone cited. When the point as to Parliamentary
privilege was taken, Mr Rowley, having considered the matter overnight,
conceded the issue as I have described. I, too, intended neither
to permit nor to make any such encroachment and would hope to
excuse myself in a similar way. Judges are loath to intervene
in a well-ordered cross-examination, especially at points where
the witness may be put into some revealing difficulty, but I should,
no doubt, have been far quicker to have seen the road-block to
which Mr Rowley was heading and to have warned him to divert.
I apologise to Parliament for not having done so.
| Case Number [2005] EWHC 2192
| 14 October 2005 |
|
