Cases

Aitken v Preston and Others

Held

Dismissing the appeal, that there were no grounds for interfering with the judge's decision. The Court rejected the Defendants' submission that the public would perceive a jury trial as the appropriate way of deciding a dispute between a senior public figure elected by and accountable to the public, and the media. Public perception was not a reliable guide. Given the overall complexity of the case resulting from the proliferation of issues and sub-issues, the amount of detail, the body of documentation and the number of witnesses, the interests of justice were best served by a painstaking, dispassionate, impartial, orderly approach to deciding where the truth lay. A reasoned judgment giving the judge's conclusions on each of the main issues would settle the debate once and for all. A further disadvantage of jury trial lay in the fact that there would be a split trial of the issues of liability and quantum, which would almost certainly lead to the recalling of witnesses.

Also