Privilege has a number of specific meanings in law, relating to the protection given to certain types of information or utterance.

In relation to the conduct of litigation, privilege describes the right of a party to hold back information in a court case which might otherwise be relevant to the case.  It takes a number of forms, including:

• Legal professional privilege
• Legal advice privilege
• Litigation privilege
• Without prejudice privilege
• Self-incrimination privilege

In relation to defamation, privilege operates as a defence and, depending on the circumstances, can be either absolute or qualified privilege. In either case it protects a person from being sued for defamation over something they have said or written.

See the separate entries for each of these types of privilege.