NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ASSEMBLY

1967 SESSION

 

 

CHAPTER 794

HOUSE BILL 118

 

 

AN ACT RELATING TO COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN CLERGYMEN AND COMMUNICANTS.

 

The General Assembly of North Carolina do enact:

 

Section 1.  G.S. 8-53.1, as the same appears in the Supplement to Volume 1B, General Statutes of North Carolina, is rewritten to read as follows:

"8-53.1.  Communications Between Clergymen and Communicants. No priest, rabbi, accredited Christian Science practitioner, or a clergyman or ordained minister of an established church shall be competent to testify in any action, suit or proceeding concerning any information which was communicated to him and entrusted to him in his professional capacity, and necessary to enable him to discharge the functions of his office according to the usual course of his practice or discipline, wherein such person so communicating such information about himself or another is seeking spiritual counsel and advice relative to and growing out of the information so imparted, provided, however, that this Section shall not apply where communicant in open court waives the privilege conferred."

Sec. 2.  All laws and clauses of laws in conflict with this Act are hereby repealed.

Sec. 3.  This Act shall be in full force and effect from and after its ratification.

In the General Assembly read three times and ratified, this the 15th day of June, 1967.