Evidence Act 2006

Admissibility rules, privilege, and confidentiality - Privilege and confidentiality - Privilege

66: Joint and successive interests in privileged material

You could also call this:

"Protecting shared secrets in court: what happens when someone with a secret dies or shares it with others"

If you have a privilege to protect certain information, and you share that privilege with someone else, you can still protect that information from others. You can also access the protected information without any restrictions from sections 54 to 60 and 64 of the Evidence Act and section 64. A Judge can order you not to share the protected information in a court case if someone with a legitimate interest in keeping it private asks them to.

If someone with a privilege dies, their personal representative or the person who inherits their property can take over the privilege. They can protect the information from others and access it without restrictions from sections 54 to 57 of the Evidence Act. However, the Judge must be satisfied that the personal representative or the person who inherited the property has a good reason to keep the information private.

A Judge can order the personal representative or the person who inherited the property not to share the protected information in a court case if someone with a legitimate interest in keeping it private asks them to. This applies to privileges conferred by sections 54 to 57 of the Evidence Act.

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This page was last updated on 29 June 2025

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM393678.

Topics:

Crime and justice > Courts and legal help

65: Waiver, or

"Giving up a secret or private information that you're allowed to keep"

67: Powers of Judge to disallow privilege, or

"A Judge can stop someone using a secret conversation as an excuse if they think it's unfair."

Part 2Admissibility rules, privilege, and confidentiality
Privilege and confidentiality: Privilege

66Joint and successive interests in privileged material

A person who jointly with some other person or persons has a privilege conferred by any of sections 54 to 60 and 64 in respect of a communication, information, opinion, or document—
is entitled to assert the privilege against third parties; and
is not restricted by any of sections 54 to 60 and 64 from having access or seeking access to the privileged matter; and
may, on the application of a person who has a legitimate interest in maintaining the privilege (including another holder of the privilege), be ordered by a Judge not to disclose the privileged matter in a proceeding.

On or after the death of a person who has a privilege conferred by any of sections 54 to 57 in respect of a communication, information, opinion, or document, the personal representative of the deceased person or other successor in title to property of the deceased person—
is entitled to assert the privilege against third parties; and
is not restricted by any of sections 54 to 57 from having access or seeking access to the privileged matter.

However, subsection (2) applies only to the extent that a Judge is satisfied that the personal representative or other successor in title to property has a justifiable interest in maintaining the privilege in respect of the communication, information, opinion, or document.
A personal representative of a deceased person who has a privilege conferred by any of sections 54 to 57 in respect of a communication, information, opinion, or document and any other successor in title to property of a person who has such a privilege, may, on the application of a person who has a legitimate interest in maintaining the privilege (including another holder of the privilege), be ordered by a Judge not to disclose the privileged matter in a proceeding.

Notes

Section 66(2): replaced, on 8 January 2017, by section 23 of the Evidence Amendment Act 2016 (2016 No 44).