PRIVILEGE taken in its active sense is a particular law, or a particular disposition of a law, granting certain special prerogatives to some person contrary to the common right. Examples of privilege may be found in all systems of law, as in the case of members of Congress and of the several legislatures when in attendance at their legislative duties; par ties as witnesses while attending court, and coming to and returning from the same, electors while going or returning to the election, are all privileged from arrest except for treason, felony or breach of the peace. Privileges from arrest are either general and absolute, or limited as to time or place.
Ambassadors and their servants are abso lutely so privileged.
A privilege of arrest for a legislature mem ber is limited to the period of the legislative session and a reasonable time in going and returning.
In the civil law a privilege is a right which the nature of a debt gives to a creditor, enti tling him to be preferred before other creditors.
Privileged communications are those state ments made by a client to his counsellor or attorney in confidence, relating to some cause or action then pending; such communications cannot be disclosed without the consent of the client. The courts sometimes exclude from evi dence, as privileged communications, matters of a judicial, political or professional nature on the grounds of public policy.
In many jurisdictions a writ of privilege or protection is issued by the courts, affording one, under proper circumstances, protection against arrest or from the service of civil process.
A witness is entitled to the privilege of refusing to answer incriminating questions.
A physician cannot be compelled to disclose the secrets of the sick room; a Roman Catholic priest to make confessions public; a clergyman to reveal the confidences of his pastoral rela tions; or a juror to repeat the considerations of the jury room.
Of ancient and mediaeval legislation, the Privilege formed an important branch; in truth, the condition of the so-called °privileged classes' was different socially, civilly and religiously, from that of the non-privileged. In canon law, there were two privileges pertaining to the clergy, the privilegium canonis and the privite gium fori. By the former, the person of the clergyman, of whatever degree, was protected from violence by the penalty of excommunica tion against the offender; by the Patter, known in England as the °benefit of clergy,' the clergy man was exempted from the civil tri bunals, and could be tried only in the ecclesi astical courts. Most of the purely civil privi leges have been abolished throughout Europe by modern legislation.