---
title: O.C.G.A. § 24-5-505. Party or witness privilege.
collection: code
id: 24-5-505
cite_as: O.C.G.A. § 24-5-505 (2025)
canonical_url: https://georgiacommons.org/code/24-5-505
md_url: https://georgiacommons.org/code/24-5-505.md
text_url: https://georgiacommons.org/code/24-5-505/text
source_url: https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/document/docs/default-source/joint-features-document-library/t24-ch1-7-(v20)-2023-pdf.pdf?sfvrsn=27d520aa_0#page=384
date: 2025
status: active
corpus_version: 2025-supplement-89aa39ab3c68
license: CC0-1.0
publisher: Georgia Commons, an independent project of Georgia Civic Data. Not the State of Georgia. Not legal advice.
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version: the only printed version
in_force: true
current_through: Including Acts of the 2025 Regular Session of the General Assembly
heading_path: EVIDENCE / PRIVILEGES
---

# O.C.G.A. § 24-5-505. Party or witness privilege.

(a) No party or witness shall be required to testify as to any matter which may incriminate or tend to incriminate such party or witness or which shall tend to bring infamy, disgrace, or public contempt upon such party or witness or any member of such party or witness’s family.

(b) Except in proceedings in which a judgment creditor or judgment creditor’s successor in interest seeks postjudgment discovery involving a judgment debtor pursuant to Code Section 9-11-69, no party or witness shall be required to testify as to any matter which shall tend to work a forfeiture of his or her estate.

(c) No official persons shall be called on to disclose any state matters of which the policy of the state and the interest of the community require concealment.

## History

Code 1981, § 24-5-505, enacted by Ga. L. 2011, p. 99, § 2/HB 24.

## Cross References

Prohibition against compelled self-incrimination, Ga. Const. 1983, Art. I, Sec. I, Para. XVI.

## Law Reviews

For comment discussing the privilege against answers tending to disgrace but not incriminate, see 18 Ga. B.J. 88 (1955).

For comment, “The Government’s Privilege to Withhold the Identity of Informers, as Applied to Decoys,” see 20 Ga. B.J. 562 (1958).

For note discussing discovery proceedings available to creditors, see 12 Ga. L. Rev. 814 (1978).

For article, “Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Invocation of the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination in Civil Cases,” see 15 (No. 1) Ga. St. B.J. 14 (2009).