Counsellors risk contempt to protect confidentiality Counsellors risk contempt to protect confidentiality By Pauline Groves NSW Attorney General Jeff Shaw has announced plans to introduce a bill to protect some confidential professional relationships, including those of counsellors, social workers and journalists. At present, professional conduct codes for counsellors and journalists emphasise confidentiality as essential to client welfare or to the public interest, but there is no corresponding legal protection.
Judges can force journalists or counsellors to breach their ethics.
A disturbing theme emerging from the First National Conference on Sexual Assault and the Law, held in Melbourne at the end of November 1995, was the growing trend by defence lawyers to subpoena counselling notes taken in confidential interviews with victims of sexual violence. Conference keynote speaker Elizabeth Sheehy, a Canadian feminist academic, highlighted a defence tactic now routinely used in Canada. Women's lobby groups want explicit shield laws to safeguard the confidentiality of counselling interviews. Lil Vrklevski, from the Royal Prince Alfred Sexual Assault Unit in Sydney, is a registered psychologist with a law degree. She explained the devastating effects of breaching confidentiality .