ABSTRACT
The notion of medical confidentiality of information or medical professional privilege, as it is sometimes called, the ethical origins of which can be found in the Hippocratic Oath, also operates in jurisdictions other than the UK. Medical confidentiality is absolute in France and Belgium and is contained in their criminal codes. New Zealand has enacted its Evidence Amendment Act 1980 where, subject to minor reservations, privilege is accorded to medical confidence. Medical professional privilege (as it is referred to in the American literature) is particularly significant in the context of the confidentiality of information such as a patient’s HIV seropositivity and in cases involving balancing the breaching of confidence on the grounds of an overriding public interest in public safety against the public interest in the maintenance of confidentiality when dealing with potentially dangerous patients, as in the well known American case of Tarasoff (1976) 17 Cal (3d) 358 and the English equivalent, W v Egdell [1990] 1 All ER 835, which we have already looked at. This chapter discusses developments in American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and Scottish jurisdictions, before examining some cases from Scandinavian jurisdictions which brought the issue of confidentiality and the operation of Art 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights to the European Court of Human Rights.
