410 



CONFIDENTIALITY 



CONFLICT OF LAWS 



conflicting authorities in Scotland. In England 

 the rule is not qualified by reference to impending 

 litigation. The same privilege is extended to the 

 communications of several parties, or of their 

 counsel and agents engaged on the same side of a 

 cause, and made with a view to their joint prose- 

 cution or defence. Where a party placed in such 

 circumstances is examined as a witness, he will be 

 entitled to decline answering questions as to such 

 communings, and even bound to do so, unless the 

 privilege is waived by the other party interested. 

 Such confidential communications cannot, as a 

 rule, be made the ground of an action for libel or 

 slander, because there is a presumption against 

 malice, which may, however, be rebutted. It is on 

 the same principle that a master is protected who, 

 when called upon for the character of a servant, 

 charges him with a theft. With a view to pre- 

 serving the freedom of domestic intercourse, and 

 from a belief that the testimony of near relatives 

 in favour of each other was worthless, it was 

 formerly the habit to reject them as witnesses. 

 The practice in England for a long time, however, 

 has been to admit, and even to exact their evi- 

 dence, making allowance, in appreciating its value, 

 for the circumstances in which they are placed. 

 The same principle has latterly been followed in 

 Scotland ; and the only exceptions which have been 

 retained by the Evidence Acts of 1853-54 are, that 

 neither the parties themselves, nor their husbands 

 or wives, shall be competent or compellable to give 

 evidence in criminal proceedings in which they are 

 accused, nor to answer questions in a civil suit 

 tending to criminate themselves or each other, or 

 to reveal matters which they have communicated 

 to each other during marriage. But where the issue 

 for trial involves the terms on which the spouses 

 lived, &c., they may be examined. Such com- 

 munications remain confidential, although the 

 marriage has been dissolved by death or divorce. 



From the 4th and 5th centimes the ' Seal of Con- 

 fession ' was held to be inviolable, and no priest 

 could be called upon, under any circumstances, to 

 reveal facts which had been confided to him under 

 its sanction. To this the case of treason was an 

 exception in England, even in Roman Catholic 

 times. The capitularies of the French kings and 

 some other continental codes of the middle ages 

 prohibited the attendance of clergy as witnesses in 

 court. In Roman Catholic countries the privi- 

 leges of the confessional remain unaltered, although 

 a priest may state that the accused has submitted 

 to penance. The duty of disclosure, however, is 

 enforced in all cases in which the confession has 

 reference to a future crime. In England no special 

 privilege whatever is extended to the Roman 

 Catholic confessional ; and the question as to how 

 far a confession made to a clergyman for the 

 purpose of obtaining spiritual comfort and con- 

 solation is protected was long considered doubtful. 

 The rule has, however, been settled for some time 

 that clergymen are not entitled to the same privi- 

 lege as legal advisers ; though it has often been 

 advocated as advisable to extend the rule to 

 clergymen, including Roman Catholic priests. In 

 Scotland the point has never been decided, evi- 

 dence of the kind in question, when not indispens- 

 able for the ends of justice, being generally either 

 withheld or withdrawn. It has been decided in 

 England that communications to a medical man, 

 ven in the strictest professional confidence, are 

 not protected from disclosure ; and the same is the 

 case in Scotland. Factors, bankers, and intimate 

 friends are certainly not within the protection of 

 the rule. Confidentiality exists as to the great 

 majority of official reports and state papers. 



In the United States, members of the legal pro- 

 fession are privileged, and, as a rule, what a client 



says to them cannot be disclosed except the right 

 of confidentiality be waived. Interpreters stand in 

 the same relation as attorneys. Confessions made 

 to a clergyman or priest in some states are privi- 

 leged by statute, but generally it is otherwise. By 

 a statute of the state of New York, ministers of 

 the gospel and priests of every denomination are 

 forbidden to disclose confessions made to them in 

 their professional character ; and in the course of 

 discipline enjoined by the church, similar statutes 

 exist in Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa. 

 Communications made to a physician are not as a 

 rule privileged ; but in some states confidentiality 

 is recognised. Communications between a husband 

 and wife are privileged from disclosure, on the 

 grounds of public policy and the good order of 

 society. See PRIVILEGE. 



Confirmation, a Latin word which signifies 

 ' strengthening. ' In the ancient church, the rite so 

 named was administered immediately after bap- 

 tism, if the bishop happened to be present at the 

 solemnity ; and in the Greek Church it is still 

 made part of the baptismal rite, being administered 

 then by the priest by means of unction with 

 chrism preconsecrated by a bishop. In the Roman 

 Catholic Church, for the last 300 or 400 years, the 

 bishops have interposed a delay of seven years after 

 infant baptism ; in the Lutheran Church, the rite 

 is usually delayed for from thirteen to sixteen 

 years ; and in the English Church, from fourteen to 

 eighteen years. There is, however, in the latter 

 church no limitation of age, other than such as is 

 indirectly implied by the exaction of a specified 

 amount of religious knowledge as a qualification 

 for the rite. Confirmation may be administered at 

 an earlier period, if a family is about to emigrate ; 

 and persons are confirmed up to sixty or seventy, 

 if they choose. The ceremony consists in the im- 

 position of hands by the bishop, accompanied by an 

 invocation of the Holy Ghost as the comforter and 

 strengthener. But both in the Lutheran and in 

 the English Church, the ceremony is made the 

 occasion of requiring from those who have been 

 baptised in infancy, a renewal in their own persons 

 of the baptismal vow made for them by their god- 

 fathers and godmothers, who are thereby released 

 from their responsibility. Properly, none can par- 

 take of the Lord's Supper, in these churches, unless 

 they have been confirmed. In the Roman Catholic 

 Church, confirmation is held to be one of the seven 

 sacraments, and in its administration chrism and 

 the sign of the cross are used ; and instead of the 

 imposition of hands, the person confirmed receives 

 a slight blow on the cheek, to remind him that he 

 must in future suffer affronts for the name of 

 Christ. Catholics usually take a new name at 

 confirmation, which should be the name of some 

 saint whom they choose for their special patron. 

 In the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of 

 England, confirmation is declared not to be one 

 of the sacraments, and the above ceremonies have 

 been discontinued since the Reformation. 



Confiscation, in Scottish law, has been ap- 

 plied to the forfeiture of lands or goods to the 

 crown, as part of the punishment for certain crimes, 

 such as murder and treason. But more commonly 

 the word is used in international law to signify 

 the appropriation of goods or ships belonging to 

 a hostile state, or its subjects, generally as a 

 punishment for an attempted breach of blockade. 

 See ESCHEAT. 



Conflict Of Laws. On the breaking up 

 of the Roman empire into separate kingdoms, as 

 many systems of jurisprudence, more or less dis- 

 similar, arose, and were administered side by side. 

 But owing to commercial intercourse and inter- 

 marriage many persons held property in mora 



