Edgar Joseph Jr FCJ:

We sat for two days hearing these two applications made pursuant to the provisions of s. 96(a) of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 (Act 91), for leave to appeal from the orders of the Court of Appeal dismissing the Applicants' appeals from orders of Mr. Justice Ian Chin refusing to strike out the Respondents' actions in Suit No. 351 of 1997 and Suit No. 352 of 1997 for want of prosecution, and, at the conclusion of the arguments, we reserved our decision until the next day when we dismissed the same, with an intimation that we would be delivering a judgment in writing on a date to be announced. This we now do. The Applicants are the Defendants and the Respondents are the Plaintiffs.

It is not the practice of this Court, nor as we understand it, the practice of the House of Lords, when sitting in its judicial capacity hearing applications for leave to appeal, to give explicit reasons for granting or refusing leave, save in circumstances where their Lordships considered that they had no jurisdiction to entertain the application.

We would interpolate to remark that, unlike in this country, the sieve for English civil appeals to the House of Lords opera