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Judicial responses to the protected confidential communications legislation in Australia

journal contribution
posted on 2002-08-01, 00:00 authored by Danuta MendelsonDanuta Mendelson
The article examines the background, aims and scope of recent legislation enacted in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia to protect from disclosure in court of "confidential communications" generated in the context of counselling persons who allege that they were victims of sexual offences. In drafting the "confidential communications" legislation, the legislators undertook a difficult task of balancing the public interest in therapeutic confidentiality that would encourage victims of sexual assaults to report these offences and seek psychological and psychiatric care on the one hand, and the public interest in fairness of the trial, which may be prejudiced by exclusion of evidence pertinent to the forensic process on the other. In South Australia this task was fulfilled with greater success than in New South Wales and Victoria.

History

Journal

Journal of law and medicine

Volume

10

Issue

1

Pagination

49 - 60

Publisher

Lawbook Company

Location

North Ryde, NSW

ISSN

1320-159X

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2002, Thomson Legal & Regulatory Ltd.

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