Disclosure of information.

No employee of any of the facilities under the management, control, supervision or affiliated with the Alabama Department of Mental Health shall be required to disclose any record, report, case history, memorandum or other information, oral or written, which may have been acquired, made or compiled in attending or treating any patient of said facilities in a professional character, when such information was necessary in order to evaluate or treat said patient or to do any act for him or her in a professional capacity, unless a court of competent jurisdiction shall order disclosure for the promotion of justice; provided, that where a person is a defendant in a criminal case and a mental examination of such defendant has been ordered by the court, the results or the report of such mental examination shall be forwarded to the clerk of said court and to the district attorney and to the attorney of record for the defendant.

(Acts 1971, No. 1891, p. 3078, §1.)