Irving v. Lipstadt
Transcripts
Holocaust Denial on Trial, Trial Transcripts, Day 31: Electronic Edition
Pages 28 - 33 of 33
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You have the opportunity to address me on
1said in their closing submissions. If you want to do it,
2I think now is the opportunity to do it.
3MR IRVING: Mr Rampton says that he is not pleading section 5
4on any of the issues in their pleadings of course, in
5their defence, that is.
6MR RAMPTON: I do not say that. What I say is that we do not
7believe that it has any application, because everything we
8said is substantially true. That does not mean that, if
9your Lordship does not agree with that, section 5 may not
10need to be applied.
11MR IRVING: They withdrew the Moscow witnesses and their expert
12reports and the documents that went with them. They have
13adduced no evidence whatsoever in justification of the
14allegation that I breached the agreement in the Moscow
15diaries therefore, and I cannot see therefore ----
16MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am in the difficulty that I have to admit
17that I have not got as far in the Defendants' submissions
18as the Moscow section, so I do not know, because I had
19expected that I was going to be taken through the
20submissions this morning or today.
21MR IRVING: My Lord, I have dealt ----
22MR JUSTICE GRAY: So I cannot help you on that.
23MR IRVING: I dealt, probably quite improperly then, with the
24matter in my closing submissions where I dealt with the
25allegations about the Hamas and Hisbollah and Farakan and
26Pramyat in three or four pages in fact of my closing
1statement and strongly suggested that section 5 should not
2apply.
3MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton has not really addressed that
4point, but I am well aware there is a great deal in
5Professor Lipstadt's references to you in her book
6which have not been sought to be justified at all.
7MR IRVING: Yes.
8MR JUSTICE GRAY: So it seems to me that section 5 has got to
9play some part, whether it avails the defendants is
10something that I will have decide.
11MR IRVING: The allegation that I sit in my office beneath a
12portrait of Adolf Hitler and that kind of thing, for which
13again they have pleaded no justification, which will
14certainly go to my seriousness as a historian. I was
15hoping that we were going to obtain some definitive list
16from the Defendants of what they do intend to put in that
17particular sand bucket.
18MR JUSTICE GRAY: They are entitled to say, we say everything
19is true, full stop. As I understand Mr Rampton, that is
20the way it is put in the written submissions, but I think
21I have to approach it on the basis that section 5 is
22pleaded and it is there if the defendants need it.
23MR RAMPTON: Then, my Lord, it is up to the Plaintiff, the
24Claimant, to point to those -- I do not mean in any sense
25that it is a great deal -- few parts of what Professor
26Lipstadt wrote, specific parts, that the Defendants have
1not sought specifically to justify, and to say those parts
2are outside section 5 because they are so serious; what is
3more, I am entitled to damages for them because they are
4distinct and severable allegations and not part of a
5common sting.
6MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think, to be fair, from what I have read of
7Mr Irving's closing statement, he makes very clear what he
8says has not been proven by the Defendants.
9MR IRVING: Round about page 5 onwards.
10MR JUSTICE GRAY: He does not perhaps dot the I by saying, "and
11that is a severable allegation, which means that, it not
12having been justified, I am entitled to damages", but that
13is the thrust of the way he puts it, as I understand it.
14MR IRVING: I did look at Gatley last night on the severable
15allegation aspect of it and I am not sure that that is
16relevant in this particular matter. I tried to work it in
17but I found that I could not.
18MR JUSTICE GRAY: Whether it is severable or not?
19MR IRVING: Whether it is severable or not.
20MR JUSTICE GRAY: There may be something in that. I really do
21not, if I may say so, think that this is a satisfactory
22way of dealing with it.
23MR IRVING: Not in my closing submissions?
24MR JUSTICE GRAY: If you want to make a closing speech and make
25whatever points you like, then of course please do so,
26Mr Irving, and then Mr Rampton can separately reply to
1those submissions, rather than having odd points batted
2around, because it is becoming unstructured and completely
3unhelpful.
4MR IRVING: May I therefore now put to the court by way
5submission the pages of this relating to Pamyat and
6Hisbollah and those allegations?
7MR RAMPTON: I really find this very difficult. I have not had
8Mr Irving's submission long enough even to have had time
9to look at it. If I had had, I might have had something
10to say about it. It is as simple as that. I do not think
11at this stage in the case it is satisfactory. I am
12leaving aside entirely the inconvenience to your
13Lordship. It is not satisfactory to the other party that
14the Claimant should suddenly stand up and make a row of
15oral submissions.
16MR IRVING: My Lord this submission is --
17MR RAMPTON: I am sorry, Mr Irving. If Mr Irving has serious
18submissions of fact and law to make about the defence and
19the way in which it is presented, then we should have them
20in writing and in time to respond to them. We have not
21had that opportunity.
22MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, I am sorry, I had expected that
23today you would be making your submissions, and you do not
24want to make them.
25MR RAMPTON: But they are all in here, both of law and of fact,
26in seriatim and in detail. I have nothing to add to what
1I wrote.
2MR JUSTICE GRAY: Very well. Subject to either of you, I think
3I will adjourn now and we will resume tomorrow, but
4I would like to be absolutely clear in my own mind,
5because there seems to have been some confusion about
6today, what it is that is proposed to be done tomorrow.
7Are we just having statements for public consumption? If
8so, how long is each side likely to take and is there
9going to be anything else dealt with tomorrow?
10MR RAMPTON: No. I have no present intention and, if I should
11be prompted to change that, of course, I will tell your
12Lordship. I have no present intention of making any
13submissions on the facts or the law that are not contained
14in this file. I therefore intend, with your Lordship's
15permission, to make a relatively short, maybe an hour and
16a half, two hour statement, setting out in summary what
17the Defendants' case is to show that what Professor
18Lipstadt wrote and Penguin published was in substance true
19in every single respect. That includes, for example, the
20Hitler portrait, which is a mere aspect of a wider
21allegation of Hitler partisanship. It includes the
22Stockholm meeting, which in its natural meaning is merely
23a particular example of a much wider picture, that is to
24say adherence to and association with right-wing,
25anti-Semitic principles and people.
26MR IRVING: My Lord, I must then ask you to advise me whether
1tomorrow I should make a separate submission on section 5
2matters, or whether I can leave it bound up in my closing
3statement as I do.
4MR JUSTICE GRAY: I would leave it bound up if I were you, but
5what are you proposing to do? Like Mr Rampton, speak for
6an hour and a half, two hours?
7MR IRVING: Based upon a cut down version of this text, I will
8speak the same length as Mr Rampton.
9MR JUSTICE GRAY: Very well. 10.30 tomorrow.
10(The court adjourned until the following day).
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1said in their closing submissions. If you want to do it,
2I think now is the opportunity to do it.
3MR IRVING: Mr Rampton says that he is not pleading section 5
4on any of the issues in their pleadings of course, in
5their defence, that is.
6MR RAMPTON: I do not say that. What I say is that we do not
7believe that it has any application, because everything we
8said is substantially true. That does not mean that, if
9your Lordship does not agree with that, section 5 may not
10need to be applied.
11MR IRVING: They withdrew the Moscow witnesses and their expert
12reports and the documents that went with them. They have
13adduced no evidence whatsoever in justification of the
14allegation that I breached the agreement in the Moscow
15diaries therefore, and I cannot see therefore ----
16MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am in the difficulty that I have to admit
17that I have not got as far in the Defendants' submissions
18as the Moscow section, so I do not know, because I had
19expected that I was going to be taken through the
20submissions this morning or today.
21MR IRVING: My Lord, I have dealt ----
22MR JUSTICE GRAY: So I cannot help you on that.
23MR IRVING: I dealt, probably quite improperly then, with the
24matter in my closing submissions where I dealt with the
25allegations about the Hamas and Hisbollah and Farakan and
26Pramyat in three or four pages in fact of my closing
. P-28
1statement and strongly suggested that section 5 should not
2apply.
3MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton has not really addressed that
4point, but I am well aware there is a great deal in
5Professor Lipstadt's references to you in her book
6which have not been sought to be justified at all.
7MR IRVING: Yes.
8MR JUSTICE GRAY: So it seems to me that section 5 has got to
9play some part, whether it avails the defendants is
10something that I will have decide.
11MR IRVING: The allegation that I sit in my office beneath a
12portrait of Adolf Hitler and that kind of thing, for which
13again they have pleaded no justification, which will
14certainly go to my seriousness as a historian. I was
15hoping that we were going to obtain some definitive list
16from the Defendants of what they do intend to put in that
17particular sand bucket.
18MR JUSTICE GRAY: They are entitled to say, we say everything
19is true, full stop. As I understand Mr Rampton, that is
20the way it is put in the written submissions, but I think
21I have to approach it on the basis that section 5 is
22pleaded and it is there if the defendants need it.
23MR RAMPTON: Then, my Lord, it is up to the Plaintiff, the
24Claimant, to point to those -- I do not mean in any sense
25that it is a great deal -- few parts of what Professor
26Lipstadt wrote, specific parts, that the Defendants have
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1not sought specifically to justify, and to say those parts
2are outside section 5 because they are so serious; what is
3more, I am entitled to damages for them because they are
4distinct and severable allegations and not part of a
5common sting.
6MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think, to be fair, from what I have read of
7Mr Irving's closing statement, he makes very clear what he
8says has not been proven by the Defendants.
9MR IRVING: Round about page 5 onwards.
10MR JUSTICE GRAY: He does not perhaps dot the I by saying, "and
11that is a severable allegation, which means that, it not
12having been justified, I am entitled to damages", but that
13is the thrust of the way he puts it, as I understand it.
14MR IRVING: I did look at Gatley last night on the severable
15allegation aspect of it and I am not sure that that is
16relevant in this particular matter. I tried to work it in
17but I found that I could not.
18MR JUSTICE GRAY: Whether it is severable or not?
19MR IRVING: Whether it is severable or not.
20MR JUSTICE GRAY: There may be something in that. I really do
21not, if I may say so, think that this is a satisfactory
22way of dealing with it.
23MR IRVING: Not in my closing submissions?
24MR JUSTICE GRAY: If you want to make a closing speech and make
25whatever points you like, then of course please do so,
26Mr Irving, and then Mr Rampton can separately reply to
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1those submissions, rather than having odd points batted
2around, because it is becoming unstructured and completely
3unhelpful.
4MR IRVING: May I therefore now put to the court by way
5submission the pages of this relating to Pamyat and
6Hisbollah and those allegations?
7MR RAMPTON: I really find this very difficult. I have not had
8Mr Irving's submission long enough even to have had time
9to look at it. If I had had, I might have had something
10to say about it. It is as simple as that. I do not think
11at this stage in the case it is satisfactory. I am
12leaving aside entirely the inconvenience to your
13Lordship. It is not satisfactory to the other party that
14the Claimant should suddenly stand up and make a row of
15oral submissions.
16MR IRVING: My Lord this submission is --
17MR RAMPTON: I am sorry, Mr Irving. If Mr Irving has serious
18submissions of fact and law to make about the defence and
19the way in which it is presented, then we should have them
20in writing and in time to respond to them. We have not
21had that opportunity.
22MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, I am sorry, I had expected that
23today you would be making your submissions, and you do not
24want to make them.
25MR RAMPTON: But they are all in here, both of law and of fact,
26in seriatim and in detail. I have nothing to add to what
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1I wrote.
2MR JUSTICE GRAY: Very well. Subject to either of you, I think
3I will adjourn now and we will resume tomorrow, but
4I would like to be absolutely clear in my own mind,
5because there seems to have been some confusion about
6today, what it is that is proposed to be done tomorrow.
7Are we just having statements for public consumption? If
8so, how long is each side likely to take and is there
9going to be anything else dealt with tomorrow?
10MR RAMPTON: No. I have no present intention and, if I should
11be prompted to change that, of course, I will tell your
12Lordship. I have no present intention of making any
13submissions on the facts or the law that are not contained
14in this file. I therefore intend, with your Lordship's
15permission, to make a relatively short, maybe an hour and
16a half, two hour statement, setting out in summary what
17the Defendants' case is to show that what Professor
18Lipstadt wrote and Penguin published was in substance true
19in every single respect. That includes, for example, the
20Hitler portrait, which is a mere aspect of a wider
21allegation of Hitler partisanship. It includes the
22Stockholm meeting, which in its natural meaning is merely
23a particular example of a much wider picture, that is to
24say adherence to and association with right-wing,
25anti-Semitic principles and people.
26MR IRVING: My Lord, I must then ask you to advise me whether
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1tomorrow I should make a separate submission on section 5
2matters, or whether I can leave it bound up in my closing
3statement as I do.
4MR JUSTICE GRAY: I would leave it bound up if I were you, but
5what are you proposing to do? Like Mr Rampton, speak for
6an hour and a half, two hours?
7MR IRVING: Based upon a cut down version of this text, I will
8speak the same length as Mr Rampton.
9MR JUSTICE GRAY: Very well. 10.30 tomorrow.
10(The court adjourned until the following day).
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