50.
In the exercise of the discretion to grant an interlocutory application the Court
must consider the fact that its primary function of provisional and protective
measures is to preserve the integrity of the final judgment.
51.
It is trite to state the well- known position of law, whether in a national court or
an international or supranational tribunal that the issue of the power to grant
interim protection requires a delicate appreciation. As shown in the cases
cited, the applicant must have raised a triable issue in the main suit which can
only be determined in the final judgment for the Court to grant an
interlocutory remedy of this nature.
Also, a denial of the remedy may prejudice the plaintiff, and its grant may
prejudice the defendant. This was considered in the case of Films Rover
International Ltd v Canon Films Sales 1987 lWLR 670, 680 where Hoffmann J.
said:
"The principal dilemma about the grant of interlocutory injunctions ..... .zs
that there is by definition a risk that the court may make the '·wrong' decision,
in the sense of granting an injunction to a party who fails to establish his right
at the trial (or ·would fail if there was a trial) or alternately, in failing to grant
an injunction to a party ·who succeeds ( or would succeed ) at trial. A
fundamental principle is therefore that the court should turn out to have been
'·wrong' in the sense I have described. The guidelines for the grant
;of....interlocutory injunctions are derived from this principle."
52.
In the case of AMERICAN CYANAMID CO. V. ETHICON LTD, decision of
the House of Lords, on February 5,
injunction stated
1975, on an issue of interlocutory
a number of issues regarding the conditions for a grant of
the relief. The court held inter alia that " it is no part of the court's function at
I
this stage of the litigation to try to resolve conflicts of evidence on affidavit
evidence as to facts on which the claims of the party may ultimately depend
nor to decide difficult questions of law which call for detailed argument and
mature considerations. These are matters to be dealt with at the trial. ......So
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