Short answer. Sometimes, but not automatically. Rule 130, Section 24 bars examining a public officer about communications made in official confidence when the court finds that the public interest would suffer by the disclosure. The court makes that finding — the officer does not decide it.
What the law says
A public officer cannot be examined during or after his or her tenure as to communications made to him or her in official confidence, when the court finds that the public interest would suffer by the disclosure.
Rule 130, Section 24 — Disqualification by reason of privileged communication[s]. Read the full provision →
What the law says
The communication shall remain privileged, even in the hands of a third person who may have obtained the information, provided that the original parties to the communication took reasonable precaution to protect its confidentiality.
Rule 130, Section 24 — Disqualification by reason of privileged communication[s]. Read the full provision →
A privilege the court controls
The other privileges in Section 24 turn on consent — the client's, the patient's, the spouse's. This one turns on a judicial finding. The officer is barred from being examined only when the court finds that the public interest would suffer by the disclosure. That places the decision with the court rather than with the office holding the information, which is the safeguard that keeps the privilege from becoming a general power to withhold anything inconvenient.
It outlasts the office
The clause covers a public officer during or after his or her tenure. Leaving government does not release someone to disclose what was told to them in official confidence, and a former official is in the same position as a current one. The protection attaches to the communication and to the public interest in it, not to the person's continuing employment — which is why the passage of time and a change of administration do not by themselves unlock it.
"Made in official confidence"
Not everything a public officer learns at work is within the clause. What is protected is a communication made to the officer in official confidence — information entrusted to the office on the understanding that it would be held closely. Matters that were public, or that the officer merely observed, do not fit that description. The clause is also directed at examination of the officer as a witness; access to public records is governed by its own body of rules.
The privilege can follow the information
One sentence in this clause is unusual and worth noting: the communication shall remain privileged, even in the hands of a third person who may have obtained the information, provided the original parties took reasonable precaution to protect its confidentiality. So a leak does not automatically destroy the privilege — but the proviso does real work. Where no reasonable precautions were taken, the condition the rule sets is simply not met.