The law at the time considered that a wife was usually neither "compellable nor competent" to testify against her husband in a criminal trial.

Any party to proceedings is a competent and compellable witness for any other party.

This act amended the law such that spouses and civil partners of an accused person in Scotland, are competent and compellable witnesses for the prosecution.

"Everybody", said Mr. Justice Patteson, who tried the case, "except counsel and attorneys, is compellable to reveal what they may have heard."

She does not become criminally liable merely by assisting her husband to escape punishment for a crime which she knows him to have committed; and it is only within certain limits that husband and wife are competent, and within narrower limits that they are compellable, to give evidence against one another, in criminal proceedings.

No such minister, priest, or rabbi shall disclose any communication made to him by any such person professing religious faith, seeking spiritual guidance, or seeking counseling, nor shall such minister, priest, or rabbi be competent or compellable to testify with reference to any communication in court.