Z v New South Wales Crime Commission

In *Z v New South Wales Crime Commission*, the High Court of Australia considered an appeal by a legal practitioner who had been summonsed to give evidence before the New South Wales Crime Commission. The practitioner had refused to disclose the name and address of a person who had provided him with information, asserting that the communications containing this information were protected by legal professional privilege. The Commission had directed the practitioner to answer the questions, ruling that the communications were not privileged.

The central legal issues before the High Court were whether the communication of a client's name or contact details to a legal practitioner constitutes a privileged communication, and whether section 18B(4) of the *New South Wales Crime Commission Act 1985* (NSW) qualified a legal practitioner's entitlement to refuse to answer questions that would disclose a privileged communication by requiring them to furnish the name and address of the person involved in that communication.

The High Court upheld the decision of the Court of Appeal. While not definitively determining whether the communication of a client's name and address is inherently privileged, the Court found that section 18B(4) of the Act, by its plain language, required a legal practitioner to disclose the name and address of the person to whom or by whom a communication was made, even if that communication was otherwise privileged. The Court considered that there was no textual basis to confine the operation of this provision in a way that would exclude its application in the present circumstances.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.