TNAG-2389-FCO40-3471-Extradition-from-the-UK-to-Hong-Kong-case-of-Lorrain-Esme-Os-1991 — Page 115

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I wrote to Nick Ash

on 10 May 1990 enclosing copies

the

of a number of documents, including the four telegrams in question as part of a category (b). I commented on documents in category (b) as follows:

"These deal mainly with the publication of the Noordin Committee Report but

are so peripheral to

the issue of any prejudicial effect on trials in Hong Kong that I think they can be considered irrelevant."

This view was agreed and so the documents were not listed in the Schedule to the P.I.I. certificate.

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In the light of the above, I do not agree with Clifford Chance that the existence of these telegrams should be disclosed to Osman. It is clear that they do not come within the ambit of the order for discovery made by Parker LJ in the third habeas corpus proceedings. Of course, no order for discovery was made, in the event, in the fourth application for habeas corpus. It seems to me that two questions arise.

5.

The first question is whether the documents were caught by the terms of Osman's application for discovery. Our view at the time was (and it is still my view) that these documents were irrelevant. If this is correct, that is the end of the matter and it makes no difference whether the documents would have been encompassed by one or more of the classes set out in the two P.I.I. certificates because, logically, consideration of relevance precedes consideration of P.I.I. However, I agree that if these documents were considered relevant they would have been covered by one ΟΥ more of the classes in our P I I. certificate.

•

•

6. The second question is whether, if these documents ought to have been judged relevant and included in the Schedule to our P.I.I. certificate in June 1990, there is anything we ought to do about it now. In my view the answer is "no" because Osman's application for discovery failed on the basis of relevance and the question of P.I.I. did not therefore arise on that application: see the judgment of Leggatt LJ of 20 June 1990, page 7 B-G. It is true that the P.I.I. certificate was considered in the substantive UK4 proceedings in November 1990, but that was a claim for the nine documents which had already been disclosed in October 1989 and discovery of any further documents for which P.I.I. also be claimed had by then been ruled out.

would

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