The defence of therapeutic privilege in Australia

Therapeutic privilege is a defence that excuses a medical practitioner or other health professional from complying with the requirements of full disclosure to a patient in circumstances where it is reasonably considered that such disclosure would be harmful to that patient's health or welfare. Although the concept originated in the United States, the defence has been applied in Australia, and was specifically endorsed as part of Australian law by the High Court in Rogers v Whitaker (1992) 175 CLR 479. However, there has been negligible application of the defence since that endorsement. This article examines the doctrine of therapeutic privilege in the present Australian medico-legal environment. After an examination of the concept and its three constituetent elements, the article canvasses the limited instances of judicial approval of the defence prior to Rogers v Whitaker. The author then analyses, by reference to reported and unreported case law, why the defence has been so narrowly interpreted since, such that it has come to occupy an almost untenable position in Australia's medical jurisprudence.     

论行政合同中的行政主体特权

行政合同中的行政主体特权源于行政合同的行政性与公益性,本质在于实现行政管理目标。本文从探求行政合同特权产生的根源——天然性与必然性入手,对德、法的行政合同特权理论模式进行考量,对我国的行政特权制度与控权制度进行设计;同时,强调加强行政人员的伦理、道德建设的重要意义。     

Waiver of privilege in experiment work-ups

In an interim application, Pumfrey J has held that serving anotice of experiments in the course of patent litigation islikely to amount to a waiver of any privilege that subsistsin respect of any preliminary or work-up investigations conductedin the course of devising those experiments.     

The journalist's privilege for nonconfidential information in states with shield laws

Most scholarship on journalistic privilege has been devoted to the issues affecting the right of journalists to refuse to reveal the identities of sources to whom confidentiality has been promised. The only United States Supreme Court case and almost all activity in lower courts and legislatures on the question are aimed at resolving the problem of whether or under what circumstances journalists should be compelled to identify confidential sources. Almost all of the increasing numbers of subpoenas issued to journalists, however, are aimed at journalists' nonconfidential information. This article analyzes state shield laws and their adjudication, concluding that the state of the law is divided on whether and to what extent journalists attempting to protect nonconfidential information should enjoy a constitutional, common‐law or statutory privilege.