Confidentiality in Litigation: Undertakings, Privilege and Open Justice

The latest work by esteemed author G E Dal Pont examines confidentiality in the core aspects of the litigation process – a topical subject matter given, among other events, the media’s disregard of the Victorian County Court’s suppression and non-publication orders in the widely publicised Pell case as well as legislative developments seeking to promote the principle of open justice. The book covers, in a dedicated and comprehensive fashion, confidentiality in discovery, confidentiality by way of privilege, and the confidentiality inherent in closed court, suppression and non-publication orders.

Features:

• The law’s intervention via an undertaking as to confidentiality given to the court operates to counterbalance the invasion into the confidentiality (and privacy) of litigants in complying with compulsory process, such as discovery. This is the focus of Part I.
• The law acknowledges occasions where a litigant can legally refuse to reveal certain confidential information the subject of that process, namely in relation to ‘privileged’ information or documents. This aspect forms the substance of Part II.
• Openness, in the sense discussed in Part III, is the converse of confidentiality. An ability to attend court proceedings, disseminate the subject matter at large, and reveal the identities of participants, hardly aligns with the maintenance of confidentiality. As a result, having explained the nature of, and rationales for, open justice, the substantive chapters in Part III target how confidentiality can inform court-ordered incursions into open justice.