Swiss Criminal Procedure Code
(Criminal Procedure Code, CrimPC)

¹ This Code reg­u­lates the pro­sec­u­tion and ad­ju­dic­a­tion by the fed­er­al and can­ton­al crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies of of­fences un­der fed­er­al law.

² The pro­ced­ur­al reg­u­la­tions con­tained in oth­er fed­er­al acts are re­served.

¹ The ad­min­is­tra­tion of crim­in­al justice is the re­spons­ib­il­ity solely of the au­thor­it­ies spe­cified by law.

² Crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings may be con­duc­ted and con­cluded only in the forms provided for by law.

¹ The crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall re­spect the dig­nity of the per­sons af­fected by the pro­ceed­ings at all stages of the pro­ceed­ings.

² They shall in par­tic­u­lar com­ply with:

a.

the prin­ciple of good faith;

b.

the re­quire­ment not to ab­use the rights of oth­ers;

c.

the re­quire­ment to treat all per­sons in­volved in the pro­ceed­ings equally and fairly and to grant them the right to be heard;

d.

the pro­hib­i­tion, when tak­ing evid­ence, of us­ing meth­ods that vi­ol­ate hu­man dig­nity.

¹ The crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies are in­de­pend­ent in ap­ply­ing the law and bound solely by the law.

² Stat­utory powers to is­sue dir­ect­ives to the pro­sec­u­tion au­thor­it­ies un­der Art­icle 14 are re­served.

¹ The crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall com­mence crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings im­me­di­ately and con­clude them without un­jus­ti­fied delay.

² Where an ac­cused is in de­ten­tion, the pro­ceed­ings shall be con­duc­ted as a mat­ter of ur­gency.

¹ The crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall in­vest­ig­ate ex of­fi­cio all the cir­cum­stances rel­ev­ant to the as­sess­ment of the crim­in­al act and the ac­cused.

² They shall in­vest­ig­ate in­crim­in­at­ing and ex­culp­at­ing cir­cum­stances with equal care.

¹ The crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies are ob­liged to com­mence and con­duct pro­ceed­ings that fall with­in their jur­is­dic­tion where they are aware of or have grounds for sus­pect­ing that an of­fence has been com­mit­ted.

² The can­tons may provide:

a.

for the ex­clu­sion or lim­it­a­tion of crim­in­al li­ab­il­ity for state­ments made in the can­ton­al par­lia­ment by the mem­bers of their le­gis­lat­ive and ju­di­cial au­thor­it­ies and of their gov­ern­ments;

b.

that the pro­sec­u­tion of mem­bers of their au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for the ex­e­cu­tion of sen­tences and meas­ures and ju­di­cial au­thor­it­ies for felon­ies or mis­de­mean­ours com­mit­ted while in of­fice be made sub­ject to the au­thor­isa­tion of a non-ju­di­cial au­thor­ity.

¹ The pub­lic pro­sec­utor and courts shall waive pro­sec­u­tion if the fed­er­al law so per­mits, in par­tic­u­lar sub­ject to the re­quire­ments of Art­icles 52, 53 and 54 of the Swiss Crim­in­al Code³ (SCC).

² Un­less it is con­trary to the private claimant's over­rid­ing in­terests, they shall also waive pro­sec­u­tion if:

a.

the of­fence is of neg­li­gible im­port­ance in com­par­is­on with the oth­er of­fences with which the ac­cused is charged as re­gards the ex­pec­ted sen­tence or meas­ure;

b.

any ad­di­tion­al pen­alty im­posed in com­bin­a­tion with the sen­tence in the fi­nal judg­ment would be neg­li­gible;

c.

an equi­val­ent sen­tence im­posed abroad would have to be taken in­to ac­count when im­pos­ing a sen­tence for the of­fence pro­sec­uted.

³ Un­less it is con­trary to the private claimant's over­rid­ing in­terests, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor and courts may waive the pro­sec­u­tion if the of­fence is already be­ing pro­sec­uted by a for­eign au­thor­ity or the pro­sec­u­tion has been as­signed to such an au­thor­ity.

⁴ In such cases, they shall is­sue an or­der stat­ing that no pro­ceed­ings are be­ing tak­ing or that the on­go­ing pro­ceed­ings have been aban­doned.

¹ An of­fence may only be ju­di­cially as­sessed if the pub­lic pro­sec­utor has brought a re­lated charge against a spe­cif­ic per­son in the com­pet­ent court based on pre­cisely de­scribed cir­cum­stances.

² The fore­go­ing para­graph does not ap­ply to pro­ceed­ings re­lat­ing to sum­mary pen­alty or­ders and con­tra­ven­tions.

¹ Every per­son is pre­sumed to be in­no­cent un­til they have been con­victed in a judg­ment that is fi­nal and leg­ally bind­ing.

² The court shall be free to in­ter­pret the evid­ence in ac­cord­ance with the views that it forms over the en­tire pro­ceed­ings.

³ Where there is in­sur­mount­able doubt as to wheth­er the fac­tu­al re­quire­ments of al­leged of­fence have been ful­filled, the court shall pro­ceed on the as­sump­tion that the cir­cum­stances more fa­vour­able to the ac­cused oc­curred.

¹ No per­son who has been con­victed or ac­quit­ted in Switzer­land by a fi­nal leg­ally bind­ing judg­ment may be pro­sec­uted again for the same of­fence.

² The fore­go­ing para­graph does not ap­ply to pro­ceed­ings that have been waived or aban­doned and to the re­view of a case.

The pro­sec­u­tion au­thor­it­ies are:

a.

the po­lice;

b.

the pub­lic pro­sec­utor;

c.

the au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for pro­sec­ut­ing con­tra­ven­tions.

The fol­low­ing bod­ies have ju­di­cial powers in crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings:

a.

the com­puls­ory meas­ures court;

b.

the court of first in­stance;

c.

the ob­jec­tions au­thor­ity;

d.

the court of ap­peal.

¹ The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons shall de­term­ine their own crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies and the titles that they use.

² They shall reg­u­late the com­pos­i­tion, or­gan­isa­tion and powers of the crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies and the ap­point­ment of their mem­bers, un­less this Code or oth­er fed­er­al acts reg­u­late the same in full.

³ They may es­tab­lish the of­fices of a chief pub­lic pro­sec­utor or at­tor­ney gen­er­al.

⁴ They may es­tab­lish two or more sim­il­ar crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies and spe­cify the loc­al or ma­ter­i­al jur­is­dic­tion of each; ex­emp­ted there­from are the ob­jec­tions au­thor­ity and the court of ap­peal.

⁵ They shall reg­u­late the su­per­vi­sion of their crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies.

¹ The activ­it­ies of the fed­er­al, can­ton­al and com­mun­al po­lice in pro­sec­u­tion mat­ters are gov­erned by this Code.

² The po­lice in­vest­ig­ate of­fences on their own ini­ti­at­ive, in re­sponse to re­ports from mem­bers of the pub­lic and from au­thor­it­ies, and on the in­struc­tions of the pub­lic pro­sec­utor; in do­ing so, they are sub­ject to the su­per­vi­sion and the dir­ect­ives of the pub­lic pro­sec­utor.

³ Where crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings are pending be­fore a court, the court may is­sue the po­lice with in­struc­tions and as­sign­ments.

¹ The pub­lic pro­sec­utor is re­spons­ible for the uni­form ex­er­cise of the state's right to pun­ish crim­in­al con­duct.

² It con­ducts pre­lim­in­ary pro­ceed­ings, pur­sues of­fences with­in the scope of the in­vest­ig­a­tion, and where ap­plic­able brings charges and acts as pro­sec­utor.

¹ The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons may del­eg­ate the pro­sec­u­tion and ad­ju­dic­a­tion of con­tra­ven­tions to ad­min­is­trat­ive au­thor­it­ies.

² Where con­tra­ven­tions are com­mit­ted in con­nec­tion with a felony or mis­de­mean­our, they shall be pro­sec­uted by the pub­lic pro­sec­utor and judged by the courts at the same time as the more ser­i­ous of­fence.

¹ The com­puls­ory meas­ures court is re­spons­ible for or­der­ing the ac­cused's re­mand or pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion and, where this Code so provides, for or­der­ing or ap­prov­ing ad­di­tion­al com­puls­ory meas­ures.

² Mem­bers of the com­puls­ory meas­ures court may not sit as judge in the main hear­ing in the same case.

¹ The court of first in­stance as­sesses, as the first in­stance, all of­fences that do not fall with­in the jur­is­dic­tion of oth­er au­thor­it­ies.

² The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons may provide that the court of first in­stance com­prise one judge sit­ting alone to as­sess:

a.

con­tra­ven­tions;

b.

felon­ies and mis­de­mean­ours, with ex­cep­tion of those for which the pub­lic pro­sec­utor de­mands a cus­todi­al sen­tence of more than two years, in­def­in­ite in­car­cer­a­tion in terms of Art­icle 64 SCC⁴, treat­ment in terms of Art­icle 59 para­graph 3 SCC or, in the case of sus­pen­ded sanc­tions to be re­voked sim­ul­tan­eously, a depriva­tion of liberty of more than two years.

¹ The ob­jec­tions au­thor­ity rules on ob­jec­tions against the pro­ced­ur­al acts and de­cisions not sub­ject to form­al ap­peal:

a.

of the courts of first in­stance;

b.

of the po­lice, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor and the au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for pro­sec­ut­ing con­tra­ven­tions;

c.

of the com­puls­ory meas­ures court in the cases provided for by this Code.

² The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons may as­sign the powers of the ob­jec­tions au­thor­ity to the court of ap­peal.

¹ The court of ap­peal de­cides on:

a.

ap­peals against judg­ments of the courts of first in­stance;

b.

ap­plic­a­tions for the re­view of a case.

² Any per­son who has ac­ted as a mem­ber of the ob­jec­tions au­thor­ity may not sit as a mem­ber of the court of ap­peal in the same case.

³ Any per­son who has ac­ted as a mem­ber of the court of ap­peal in a spe­cif­ic case may not act as a judge re­view­ing the same case.

The can­ton­al crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall pro­sec­ute and judge of­fences un­der fed­er­al law, sub­ject to the stat­utory ex­cep­tions.

¹ The fol­low­ing of­fences in the SCC⁵ are sub­ject to fed­er­al jur­is­dic­tion:

a.⁶

the of­fences in Titles One and Four and Art­icles 140, 156, 189 and 190 in­so­far as they are com­mit­ted against per­sons pro­tec­ted by in­ter­na­tion­al law, mem­bers of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil, the Fed­er­al Chan­cel­lor or judges of the Fed­er­al Courts, mem­bers the Fed­er­al As­sembly, the Fed­er­al At­tor­ney Gen­er­al or the Deputy At­tor­neys Gen­er­al;

b.

the of­fences in Art­icles 137–141, 144, 160 and 172^terin­so­far as they re­late to premises, archives or doc­u­ments of dip­lo­mat­ic mis­sions and con­su­lates;

c.

the tak­ing of host­ages in terms of Art­icle 185 in or­der to ex­ert duress on fed­er­al or for­eign au­thor­it­ies;

d.

felon­ies and mis­de­mean­ours un­der Art­icle 224–226^ter;

e.⁷

the felon­ies and mis­de­mean­ours in Title Ten re­lat­ing to coin­age, pa­per money and bank­notes, of­fi­cial stamps and oth­er fed­er­al marks, weights and meas­ures;

f.

the felon­ies and mis­de­mean­ours in Title El­ev­en in­so­far as they re­late to of­fi­cial fed­er­al doc­u­ments, with the ex­cep­tion of driv­ing li­cences and re­ceipts for postal money trans­fers; not in­cluded are vign­ettes for us­ing first and second class na­tion­al high­ways;

g.⁸

the of­fences in Title Twelve^bis and Twelve^ter as well as Art­icle 264k;

h.

the of­fences in Art­icle 260^bis and in Titles Thir­teen to Fif­teen and in Title Sev­en­teen, provided they are dir­ec­ted against the Con­fed­er­a­tion, the au­thor­it­ies of the Con­fed­er­a­tion, the will of the People in fed­er­al elec­tions, pop­u­lar votes, re­quests for a ref­er­en­dum or ini­ti­at­ives, against fed­er­al powers or against the ad­min­is­tra­tion of fed­er­al justice;

i.

the felon­ies and mis­de­mean­ours in Title Six­teen;

j.

the of­fences in Titles Eight­een and Nine­teen in­so­far as they are com­mit­ted by a mem­ber of an au­thor­ity or an em­ploy­ee of the Con­fed­er­a­tion or against the Con­fed­er­a­tion;

k.

the con­tra­ven­tions in Art­icles 329–331;

l.

polit­ic­al felon­ies and mis­de­mean­ours that are the cause or con­sequence of un­rest that gives rise to armed fed­er­al in­ter­ven­tion.

² The reg­u­la­tions con­tained in spe­cial fed­er­al acts on the jur­is­dic­tion of the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court are re­served.

¹ Fed­er­al jur­is­dic­tion fur­ther ap­plies to the of­fences in Art­icles 260^ter, 260^quin­quies, 260^sex­ies, 305^bis, 305^ter and 322^ter–322^sep­ties SCC¹⁰ as well as the felon­ies as­so­ci­ated with a crim­in­al or ter­ror­ist or­gan­isa­tion as defined in Art­icle 260^ter SCC, if the of­fences:¹¹

a.

have to sub­stan­tial ex­tent been com­mit­ted abroad;

b.

have been com­mit­ted in two or more can­tons with no single can­ton be­ing the clear fo­cus of the crim­in­al activ­ity.

² In the case of felon­ies un­der Titles Two and El­ev­en of the SCC, the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Switzer­land may open an in­vest­ig­a­tion if:

a.

the re­quire­ments of para­graph 1 are ful­filled; and

b.

no can­ton­al crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity is deal­ing with the case or if the com­pet­ent can­ton­al crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity re­quests the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Switzer­land to take over the case.

³ The open­ing of an in­vest­ig­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 es­tab­lishes fed­er­al jur­is­dic­tion.

¹ The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Switzer­land may as­sign a crim­in­al case sub­ject to fed­er­al jur­is­dic­tion in terms of Art­icle 23 to the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies for in­vest­ig­a­tion and ad­ju­dic­a­tion or, by way of ex­cep­tion, for as­sess­ment only. Ex­emp­ted there­from are crim­in­al cases in terms of Art­icle 23 para­graph 1 let­ter g.

² In minor cases, it may also as­sign a crim­in­al case sub­ject to fed­er­al jur­is­dic­tion in terms of Art­icle 24 to the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies for in­vest­ig­a­tion and ad­ju­dic­a­tion.

¹ If the of­fence was com­mit­ted in two or more can­tons or abroad or if of­fend­ers, co-of­fend­ers, or par­ti­cipants are dom­i­ciled or ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in dif­fer­ent can­tons, the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Switzer­land shall de­cide which can­ton in­vest­ig­ates and ad­ju­dic­ates the case.

² If a crim­in­al case is sub­ject to both fed­er­al and can­ton­al jur­is­dic­tion, the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Switzer­land may in­struct the pro­ceed­ings to be com­bined and dealt with by the fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies or the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies.

³ Jur­is­dic­tion es­tab­lished in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 con­tin­ues to ap­ply even if that part of the pro­ceed­ings that es­tab­lished jur­is­dic­tion has been aban­doned.

⁴ Where del­eg­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with this Chapter is an op­tion, the pub­lic pro­sec­utors of the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons shall provide each oth­er with their re­spect­ive files. Once the de­cision is made, the files shall be passed to the au­thor­ity that must in­vest­ig­ate and ad­ju­dic­ate the case.

¹ Where a case is sub­ject to fed­er­al jur­is­dic­tion, the mat­ter is ur­gent and the fed­er­al crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies are not yet in­volved, the po­lice en­quir­ies and the in­vest­ig­a­tion may also be con­duc­ted by the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies that have loc­al jur­is­dic­tion un­der the rules on place of jur­is­dic­tion. The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Switzer­land must be no­ti­fied im­me­di­ately; the case must be trans­ferred to the OAG or re­ferred for a de­cision in terms of Art­icles 25 or 26 as soon as pos­sible.

² In the case of of­fences that have been com­mit­ted wholly or partly in two or more can­tons or abroad and for which fed­er­al or can­ton­al jur­is­dic­tion has not yet been es­tab­lished, the fed­er­al crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies may con­duct the ini­tial en­quir­ies.

In the event of con­flicts between the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Switzer­land and can­ton­al crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies, the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court shall de­cide.

¹ Of­fences shall be pro­sec­uted and ad­ju­dic­ated to­geth­er where:

a.

one per­son is ac­cused of two or more of­fences; or

b.

the case in­volves co-of­fend­ing or par­ti­cip­a­tion.

² Where one or more of mul­tiple of­fences are sub­ject to fed­er­al jur­is­dic­tion or mul­tiple of­fences have been com­mit­ted in dif­fer­ent can­tons and by two or more per­sons, Art­icles 25 and 33–38 take pre­ced­ence.

The pub­lic pro­sec­utor and the courts may sep­ar­ate or com­bine crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings for prac­tic­al reas­ons.

¹ The au­thor­it­ies of the locus of crim­in­al act was com­mit­ted have jur­is­dic­tion to pro­sec­ute and ad­ju­dic­ate the of­fence. If it is only the out­come of the of­fence that oc­curs in Switzer­land, the au­thor­it­ies at the place where it oc­curs have jur­is­dic­tion.

² Where the of­fence is com­mit­ted in two or more places or if the out­come oc­curs in two or more places, the au­thor­it­ies in the place where the ini­tial pro­sec­u­tion pro­ced­ures are car­ried out have jur­is­dic­tion.

³ Where an ac­cused has com­mit­ted two or more felon­ies, mis­de­mean­ours or con­tra­ven­tions in the same locus, the vari­ous pro­ceed­ings shall be com­bined.

¹ Where an of­fence was com­mit­ted abroad or if the place of com­mis­sion can­not be es­tab­lished, the au­thor­it­ies of the place where the ac­cused is dom­i­ciled or ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent has jur­is­dic­tion to pro­sec­ute and ad­ju­dic­ate the of­fence.

² If the ac­cused is neither dom­i­ciled nor ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land, the au­thor­it­ies at his or her place of ori­gin have jur­is­dic­tion; in the ab­sence of a place of ori­gin, the au­thor­it­ies of the place where the ac­cused was found have jur­is­dic­tion.

³ In the ab­sence of a place of jur­is­dic­tion in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 1 and 2, au­thor­it­ies of the Can­ton re­quest­ing ex­tra­di­tion have jur­is­dic­tion.

¹ The par­ti­cipants in an of­fence shall be pro­sec­uted and ad­ju­dic­ated by the same au­thor­it­ies as the prin­cip­al of­fend­er.

² If an of­fence has been com­mit­ted by two or more co-of­fend­ers, the au­thor­it­ies of the place where the ini­tial pro­sec­u­tion pro­ced­ures were car­ried out have jur­is­dic­tion.

¹ Where an ac­cused has com­mit­ted two or more of­fences at dif­fer­ent loci, the au­thor­it­ies of the place where the of­fence that car­ries the most severe pen­alty was com­mit­ted have jur­is­dic­tion to pro­sec­ute and ad­ju­dic­ate all of­fences. Where two or more of­fences carry the same pen­alty, the au­thor­it­ies of the place where the ini­tial pro­sec­u­tion pro­ced­ures were car­ried out have jur­is­dic­tion.

² Where charges have already been brought in a par­ti­cipant can­ton in re­spect of one of the of­fences at the time of the pro­ced­ure to es­tab­lish jur­is­dic­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 39–42, the pro­ceed­ings shall be con­duc­ted sep­ar­ately.

³ Where a per­son is sen­tenced by dif­fer­ent courts to two or more sim­il­ar pen­al­ties, the court that has im­posed the most severe pen­alty shall on ap­plic­a­tion im­pose a cu­mu­lat­ive sen­tence on the con­victed per­son.

¹ In the case of an of­fence un­der Art­icle 28 SCC¹² com­mit­ted in Switzer­land, the au­thor­it­ies of the place where the me­dia un­der­tak­ing has its re­gistered of­fice have jur­is­dic­tion.

² If the au­thor is known and if he or she is dom­i­ciled or ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land, the au­thor­it­ies at the dom­i­cile or the place of ha­bitu­al res­id­ence have jur­is­dic­tion. In such a case, the pro­ceed­ings shall be con­duc­ted where the ini­tial pro­sec­u­tion pro­ced­ures were car­ried out. In the case of of­fences pro­sec­uted only on com­plaint, the com­plain­ant may choose between the two places of jur­is­dic­tion.

³ Where no place of jur­is­dic­tion is es­tab­lished by para­graphs 1 or 2, the au­thor­it­ies of the place where the me­dia product is broad­cast have jur­is­dic­tion. If broad­cast­ing takes place in two or more places, the au­thor­it­ies of the place where the ini­tial pro­sec­u­tion pro­ced­ures were car­ried out have jur­is­dic­tion.

¹ In the case of of­fences in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 163–171^bis SCC¹³, the au­thor­it­ies at the dom­i­cile, place of ha­bitu­al res­id­ence or re­gistered of­fice of the debt­or have jur­is­dic­tion re­spons­ible.

² For crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings against a cor­por­ate un­der­tak­ing in terms of Art­icle 102 SCC, the au­thor­it­ies at the re­gistered of­fice of the un­der­tak­ing have jur­is­dic­tion. The fore­go­ing also ap­plies if a per­son act­ing for the un­der­tak­ing is also be­ing pro­sec­uted for the same of­fence.

³ In the ab­sence of a place of jur­is­dic­tion in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 1 and 2, jur­is­dic­tion is es­tab­lished in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 31–35.

¹ Sep­ar­ate for­feit­ure pro­ceed­ings (Art. 376–378) must be car­ried out in the place where the items or as­sets to be for­feited are loc­ated.

² If the items or as­sets to be for­feited are loc­ated in two or more can­tons and if they are con­nec­ted to the same of­fence or of­fend­er, the au­thor­it­ies of the place where the for­feit­ure pro­ceed­ings were ini­ti­ated has jur­is­dic­tion.

¹ The pub­lic pro­sec­utors may by mu­tu­al agree­ment es­tab­lish a place of jur­is­dic­tion oth­er than that provided for in Art­icles 31–37 if this is jus­ti­fied by the fo­cus of the crim­in­al activ­ity, the per­son­al cir­cum­stances of the ac­cused or oth­er just cause.

² In or­der to safe­guard the pro­ced­ur­al rights of a party, after charges have been filed, the can­ton­al ob­jec­tions au­thor­ity may on ap­plic­a­tion from that party or ex of­fi­cio trans­fer the ad­ju­dic­a­tion to an­oth­er court of first in­stance in the same can­ton with ma­ter­i­al jur­is­dic­tion in derog­a­tion from the rules on place of jur­is­dic­tion in this Chapter.

¹ The crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall veri­fy their jur­is­dic­tion ex of­fi­cio and if ne­ces­sary trans­fer the case to the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity.

² Where two or more crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies have loc­al jur­is­dic­tion, the pub­lic pro­sec­utors con­cerned shall no­ti­fy each oth­er im­me­di­ately of the es­sen­tial ele­ments of the case and en­deav­our to reach agree­ment as soon as pos­sible.

¹ In the event of a dis­pute over jur­is­dic­tion between crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies in the same can­ton, the Of­fice of the Chief Can­ton­al Pro­sec­utor or Can­ton­al At­tor­ney Gen­er­al shall make the fi­nal de­cision or, if there is no such of­fice, the can­ton­al ob­jec­tions au­thor­ity.

² In the event of a dis­pute over jur­is­dic­tion between crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies in dif­fer­ent can­tons, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor of the can­ton that was first to deal with the mat­ter shall sub­mit the is­sue im­me­di­ately, and in every case be­fore bring­ing charges, to the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court for de­cision.

³ The au­thor­ity com­pet­ent to de­cide on the place of jur­is­dic­tion may spe­cify a place of jur­is­dic­tion oth­er than that provided for in Art­icles 31–37 if this is re­quired due to the fo­cus of the crim­in­al activ­ity or the per­son­al cir­cum­stances of the ac­cused or if there is oth­er just cause.

¹ If a party wishes to con­test the jur­is­dic­tion of the au­thor­ity con­duct­ing the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings, he or she must im­me­di­ately re­quest the au­thor­ity to trans­fer the case to the com­pet­ent crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity.

² The parties may file an ob­jec­tion with­in 10 days with the au­thor­ity re­spons­ible for the de­cision on the place of jur­is­dic­tion in terms of Art­icle 40 against the de­cision on the place of jur­is­dic­tion (Art. 39 para. 2) made by the pub­lic pro­sec­utors con­cerned. If the pub­lic pro­sec­utors have agreed on an al­tern­at­ive place of jur­is­dic­tion (Art. 38 para. 1), only the party whose re­quest un­der para­graph 1 is re­jec­ted has the right to file an ob­jec­tion.

¹ Un­til a bind­ing de­cision is made on the place of jur­is­dic­tion, the first au­thor­ity to deal with the case shall carry out any meas­ures that can­not be delayed. If ne­ces­sary the au­thor­ity re­spons­ible for the de­cision on the place of jur­is­dic­tion shall des­ig­nate the au­thor­ity that must pro­vi­sion­ally deal with the mat­ter.

² Per­sons who have been ar­res­ted shall only be trans­ferred to the au­thor­it­ies of oth­er can­tons when a bind­ing de­cision on jur­is­dic­tion has been made.

³ A place of jur­is­dic­tion es­tab­lished in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 38–41 may be changed only if good cause has sub­sequently aris­en be­fore charges have been brought.

¹ The pro­vi­sions this Chapter reg­u­late mu­tu­al as­sist­ance in crim­in­al mat­ters provided by fed­er­al and can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies to pub­lic pro­sec­utors, au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for pro­sec­ut­ing con­tra­ven­tions and fed­er­al and can­ton­al courts.

² In re­la­tion to the po­lice, these pro­vi­sions ap­ply to the ex­tent that the po­lice are act­ing on in­struc­tions from pub­lic pro­sec­utors, au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for pro­sec­ut­ing con­tra­ven­tions and courts.

³ Dir­ect mu­tu­al as­sist­ance between po­lice au­thor­it­ies at fed­er­al and can­ton­al levels and between two or more can­ton­al po­lice au­thor­it­ies is per­mit­ted provided it does not re­late to com­puls­ory meas­ures that fall with­in the ex­clus­ive com­pet­ence of the pub­lic pro­sec­utor or the court.

⁴ Mu­tu­al as­sist­ance is deemed to be any meas­ure re­ques­ted by an au­thor­ity with­in the scope of their com­pet­ence in on­go­ing crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings.

The fed­er­al and can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies are ob­liged to provide mu­tu­al as­sist­ance in re­spect of of­fences be­ing pro­sec­uted and ad­ju­dic­ated un­der fed­er­al law in ap­plic­a­tion of this Code.

¹ The can­tons shall, to the ex­tent that it is re­quired and pos­sible, provide the crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies of the Con­fed­er­a­tion and oth­er can­tons with rooms in which to carry out their of­fi­cial du­ties and for the ac­com­mod­a­tion of per­sons de­tained pending the main hear­ing.

² At the re­quest of the fed­er­al crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies, the can­tons shall take the meas­ures re­quired to guar­an­tee the se­cur­ity of the of­fi­cial du­ties of these au­thor­it­ies.

¹ The au­thor­it­ies shall com­mu­nic­ate dir­ectly with each oth­er¹⁵.

² Re­quests for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance may be filed in the lan­guage of the re­quest­ing or the re­ques­ted au­thor­ity.

³ If there is any un­cer­tainty as to which au­thor­ity has jur­is­dic­tion, the re­quest­ing au­thor­ity shall file the re­quest for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance with the highest pub­lic pro­sec­utor of the re­ques­ted Can­ton or of the Con­fed­er­a­tion. This ser­vice shall pass the re­quest on to the rel­ev­ant of­fice.

¹ Mu­tu­al as­sist­ance is provided free of charge.

² The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall re­im­burse the can­tons the costs of sup­port as defined in Art­icle 45 that it has caused them to in­cur.

³ No­tice shall be giv­en to the re­quest­ing can­ton or the Con­fed­er­a­tion of any costs that have aris­en in or­der that they may be charged to the parties li­able to pay costs.

⁴ The re­quest­ing can­ton or the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall bear any ob­lig­a­tions to pay dam­ages arising from mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ures.

¹ The ob­jec­tions au­thor­ity in the rel­ev­ant can­ton shall make a fi­nal de­cision on any dis­pute over mu­tu­al as­sist­ance between au­thor­it­ies of the same can­ton.

² The Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court de­cides on con­flicts between fed­er­al and can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies as well as between au­thor­it­ies of dif­fer­ent can­tons.

¹ The fed­er­al and can­ton­al pub­lic pro­sec­utors and courts may re­quest the crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies of oth­er can­tons or of the Con­fed­er­a­tion to carry out pro­ced­ur­al acts. The re­ques­ted au­thor­ity shall not ex­am­ine wheth­er the re­ques­ted pro­ced­ur­al acts are ad­miss­ible or equit­able.

² The au­thor­it­ies of the re­quest­ing Can­ton or of the Con­fed­er­a­tion have jur­is­dic­tion to hear ap­peals against mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ures. Only the im­ple­ment­a­tion of the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ures may be con­tested be­fore the au­thor­it­ies of the re­ques­ted Can­ton or of the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

¹ The re­quest­ing au­thor­ity shall re­quest that a per­son be ar­res­ted with a writ­ten war­rant for an en­forced ap­pear­ance (Art. 208).

² If pos­sible, the re­ques­ted au­thor­ity shall hand over the ar­res­ted per­sons with­in 24 hours.

³ Ap­plic­a­tions for oth­er com­puls­ory meas­ures must in­clude a brief no­tice of the grounds. In cases of ur­gency, no­tice of the grounds may be provided later.

¹ The parties, their leg­al agents and the re­quest­ing au­thor­ity may par­ti­cip­ate in the re­ques­ted pro­ced­ur­al acts, in­so­far as this Code provides there­for.

² If par­ti­cip­a­tion is pos­sible, the re­ques­ted au­thor­ity shall no­ti­fy the re­quest­ing au­thor­ity, the parties and their leg­al agents as to where and when the pro­ced­ur­al act will be car­ried out.

¹ Fed­er­al and can­ton­al pub­lic pro­sec­utors, au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for pro­sec­ut­ing con­tra­ven­tions and courts are en­titled to or­der and carry out any of the pro­ced­ur­al acts spe­cified in this Code dir­ectly in an­oth­er can­ton.

² Pri­or no­tice shall be giv­en to the pub­lic pro­sec­utor of the can­ton in which the pro­ced­ur­al act is to be car­ried out. In cases of ur­gency, sub­sequent no­tice is pos­sible. No no­tice is re­quired for ob­tain­ing in­form­a­tion and for re­quest­ing the han­dover of files.

³ The costs of the pro­ced­ur­al acts and any re­lated ob­lig­a­tions to pay dam­ages shall be borne by the Con­fed­er­a­tion or the can­ton car­ry­ing out the act; it may charge the costs to the parties in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 426 and 427.

If the re­quest­ing au­thor­ity re­quires the sup­port of the po­lice in or­der to carry out a pro­ced­ur­al act, it shall make the rel­ev­ant re­quest to the pub­lic pro­sec­utor of the re­ques­ted Can­ton, which shall is­sue the ne­ces­sary in­struc­tions to the loc­al po­lice.

The pro­vi­sion of in­ter­na­tion­al mu­tu­al as­sist­ance and the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings are gov­erned by this Code only to the ex­tent that oth­er fed­er­al acts and in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments make no pro­vi­sion there­for.

¹ Where a can­ton is in­volved in a case of in­ter­na­tion­al mu­tu­al as­sist­ance, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor has jur­is­dic­tion.

² Dur­ing the main hear­ing, the courts may them­selves sub­mit re­quests for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance.

³ The powers of the au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for the ex­e­cu­tion of sen­tences and meas­ures are re­served.

⁴ Where fed­er­al law as­signs mu­tu­al as­sist­ance du­ties to a ju­di­cial au­thor­ity, the ob­jec­tions au­thor­ity has jur­is­dic­tion.

⁵ Where a can­ton deal­ing with a re­quest for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance from abroad car­ries out pro­ced­ur­al acts in oth­er can­tons, the pro­vi­sions on do­mest­ic mu­tu­al as­sist­ance ap­ply.

⁶ The can­tons shall reg­u­late any ad­di­tion­al pro­ced­ures.

A per­son act­ing for a crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity shall re­cuse him- or her­self if he or she:

a.

has a per­son­al in­terest in the case;

b.

has ac­ted in an­oth­er ca­pa­city in the same case, and in par­tic­u­lar as a mem­ber of an au­thor­ity, as the leg­al agent for a party, as an ex­pert wit­ness, or as a wit­ness;

c.

is mar­ried to, or liv­ing in a re­gistered part­ner­ship or co­hab­it­ing with a party, his or her leg­al agent or a per­son who has ac­ted as a mem­ber of the lower court;

d.

is re­lated to a party by birth or by mar­riage dir­ectly or col­lat­er­ally up to and in­clud­ing the third de­gree;

e.

is re­lated to the leg­al agent of a party or of a per­son who ac­ted in the same case as a mem­ber of the lower court dir­ectly or col­lat­er­ally up to and in­clud­ing the second de­gree;

f.

may not be im­par­tial for oth­er reas­ons, in par­tic­u­lar due to friend­ship or enmity with a party or his or her leg­al agent.

Where a per­son act­ing for a crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity has grounds for re­cus­al, that per­son shall no­ti­fy the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings in good time.

¹ If a party re­quests that a per­son act­ing for a crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity be re­cuse him- or her­self, the party must sub­mit the rel­ev­ant ap­plic­a­tion to the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings as soon as he or she be­comes aware of the grounds for re­cus­al; the cir­cum­stances jus­ti­fy­ing re­cus­al must be cred­ibly sub­stan­ti­ated.

² The per­son con­cerned shall re­spond to the ap­plic­a­tion.

¹ If grounds for re­cus­al in terms of Art­icle 56 let­ter a or f are claimed or if a per­son act­ing for a crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity op­poses a party ap­plic­a­tion for re­cus­al based on Art­icle 56 let­ters b–e, the fol­low­ing au­thor­it­ies shall is­sue a fi­nal de­cision without tak­ing ad­di­tion­al evid­ence:

a.

the pub­lic pro­sec­utor if mat­ter relates to the po­lice;

b.

the ob­jec­tions au­thor­ity if the mat­ter relates to the pub­lic pro­sec­utor, the au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for pro­sec­ut­ing con­tra­ven­tions or the courts of first in­stance;

c.

the court of ap­peal if the mat­ter relates to the ob­jec­tions au­thor­ity or in­di­vidu­al mem­bers of the court of ap­peal;

d.¹⁶

the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court if the mat­ter relates to an en­tire can­ton­al court of ap­peal.

² The de­cision shall be is­sued in writ­ing and with a state­ment of reas­ons.

³ Un­til the de­cision is is­sued, the per­son con­cerned shall con­tin­ue to ex­er­cise his of­fice.

⁴ If the ap­plic­a­tion is ap­proved, the pro­ced­ur­al costs are borne by the Con­fed­er­a­tion or the can­ton. If it is re­jec­ted or was clearly sub­mit­ted too late or vex­a­tious, the costs are borne by the ap­plic­ant.

¹ Where a per­son sub­ject to re­cus­al has par­ti­cip­ated in of­fi­cial acts, these acts must be an­nulled and re­peated if so re­ques­ted by a party with­in 5 days of be­com­ing aware of the de­cision on re­cus­al.

² Evid­ence that can­not be taken again may be taken in­to con­sid­er­a­tion by the crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity.

³ If the ground for re­cus­al comes to light only after con­clu­sion of the pro­ceed­ings, the pro­vi­sions on the re­view of cases ap­ply.

The per­sons re­spons­ible for dir­ect­ing the pro­ceed­ings are:

a.

un­til pro­ceed­ings are aban­doned or charges are brought: the pub­lic pro­sec­utor;

b.

in con­tra­ven­tion pro­ceed­ings: the au­thor­ity re­spons­ible for pro­sec­ut­ing con­tra­ven­tions;

c.

in court pro­ceed­ings be­fore two or more judges: the pres­id­ent of the court con­cerned;

d.

in court pro­ceed­ings be­fore one judge sit­ting alone: the judge.

¹ The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings makes the ar­range­ments re­quired to guar­an­tee the law­ful and or­derly con­duct of the pro­ceed­ings.

² In court pro­ceed­ings be­fore two or more judges, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings holds all the powers that are not re­served to the court.

¹ The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall en­sure se­cur­ity, quiet and or­der dur­ing the hear­ings.

² The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may warn any per­son who dis­rupts the hear­ings or breaches the rules of re­spect­able be­ha­viour. In the event of any re­pe­ti­tion, he or she may deny them the right to speak, or­der them to leave the court and if ne­ces­sary have them held in po­lice cus­tody un­til the con­clu­sion of the hear­ing. He or she may or­der that the court be cleared.

³ The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may re­quest the as­sist­ance of the po­lice at the place where the pro­ceed­ings are be­ing held.

⁴ If a party is ex­cluded from the court, the pro­ceed­ings shall nev­er­the­less be con­tin­ued.

¹ The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may or­der a per­son who dis­rupts the hear­ings, breaches the rules of re­spect­able be­ha­viour or dis­reg­ards pro­ced­ur­al or­ders to pay a fixed pen­alty fine of up to 1000 francs.

² Fixed pen­alty fines im­posed by the pub­lic pro­sec­utor and the courts of first in­stance may be chal­lenged be­fore the ob­jec­tions au­thor­ity with­in 10 days. Its de­cision is fi­nal.

¹ Pro­ced­ur­al or­ders is­sued by the court may only be chal­lenged when the fi­nal judg­ment is is­sued.

² If the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings in a court with two or more judges has is­sued pro­ced­ur­al or­ders be­fore the main hear­ing, the court may amend or re­voke such or­ders ex of­fi­cio or on re­quest.

Pro­ceed­ings be­fore the crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall be con­duc­ted or­ally un­less this Code provides for writ­ten pro­ceed­ings.

¹ The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons shall de­term­ine the lan­guages to be used by their crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies in pro­ceed­ings.

² The can­ton­al crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall carry out all pro­ced­ur­al acts in the lan­guages that they use in pro­ceed­ings; the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may per­mit ex­cep­tions.

¹ Where a party to the pro­ceed­ings does not un­der­stand the lan­guage of the pro­ceed­ings or is un­able to ex­press him- or her­self ad­equately, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall ap­point an in­ter­pret­er. In minor or ur­gent cases, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may, if the per­son con­cerned con­sents, dis­pense with ap­point­ing an in­ter­pret­er provided the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings and the clerk of court have an ad­equate com­mand of the for­eign lan­guage con­cerned.

² Even if he or she has a de­fence law­yer, the ac­cused shall be no­ti­fied in a lan­guage that he or she un­der­stands, either or­ally or in writ­ing, of at least the es­sen­tial con­tent of the most im­port­ant pro­ced­ur­al acts. There is no right to have all pro­ced­ur­al acts and files trans­lated in full.

³ Files that are not sub­mis­sions made by parties shall, if re­quired, be trans­lated in writ­ing or or­ally trans­lated for the re­cord of pro­ceed­ings.

⁴ A per­son of the same sex must be ap­poin­ted to trans­late ques­tions to be put to the vic­tim of a sexu­al of­fence where the vic­tim so re­quests and it is pos­sible without caus­ing an un­reas­on­able delay to the pro­ceed­ings.

⁵ The pro­vi­sions on ex­pert wit­nesses (Art. 73, 105, 182–191) ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis to trans­lat­ors and in­ter­pret­ers.

¹ Pro­ceed­ings be­fore the court of first in­stance and the court of ap­peal, to­geth­er with the or­al passing of judg­ments and de­crees of these courts shall, with the ex­cep­tion of the judges' de­lib­er­a­tions, be con­duc­ted in pub­lic.

² If the parties to such cases have waived their right to the pub­lic passing of judg­ment, or if a sum­mary pen­alty or­der is is­sued, in­ter­ested per­sons may in­spect the judg­ments and sum­mary pen­alty or­ders.

³ The fol­low­ing pro­ceed­ings are not con­duc­ted in pub­lic:

a.

pre­lim­in­ary pro­ceed­ings, with the ex­cep­tion of pub­lic an­nounce­ments made by the crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies;

b.

pro­ceed­ings be­fore the com­puls­ory meas­ures court;

c.

pro­ceed­ings be­fore the ob­jec­tions au­thor­ity and, in cases where they are con­duc­ted in writ­ing, be­fore the court of ap­peal;

d.

sum­mary pen­alty or­der pro­ceed­ings.

⁴ Pub­lic hear­ings are open to all mem­bers of the pub­lic; however, per­sons un­der 16 years of age shall only be ad­mit­ted with the per­mis­sion of the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings.

¹ The court may com­pletely or partly ex­clude mem­bers of the pub­lic from court hear­ings if:

a.

pub­lic safety or or­der or the le­git­im­ate in­terests of a per­son in­volved, and in par­tic­u­lar the vic­tim, so re­quire;

b.

too many mem­bers of the pub­lic wish ac­cess to the court.

² If mem­bers of the pub­lic are ex­cluded, the ac­cused, the vic­tim and private claimants may each be ac­com­pan­ied by a max­im­um of three con­fid­ants.

³ Sub­ject to spe­cif­ic re­quire­ments, the court may al­low court re­port­ers and ad­di­tion­al per­sons with a le­git­im­ate in­terest ac­cess to pro­ceed­ings that are private in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1.

⁴ If mem­bers of the pub­lic are ex­cluded, the court shall pass judge­ment at a pub­lic hear­ing or shall if re­quired in­form the pub­lic of the out­come of the pro­ceed­ings in an­oth­er suit­able man­ner.

¹ It is not per­mit­ted to make video or au­dio re­cord­ings with­in the court build­ing or to make such re­cord­ings of pro­ced­ur­al acts car­ried out out­side the court build­ing.

² Per­sons in­fringing the fore­go­ing para­graph may be li­able to a fixed pen­alty fine in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 64 para­graph 1. Un­au­thor­ised re­cord­ings may be con­fis­cated.

The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons may reg­u­late the ac­cred­it­a­tion and rights and ob­lig­a­tions of court re­port­ers.

¹ Mem­bers of crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies, their em­ploy­ees and ex­perts ap­poin­ted by crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall treat as con­fid­en­tial in­form­a­tion that comes to their know­ledge in the ex­er­cise of their of­fi­cial du­ties.

² The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may re­quire private claimants and oth­er per­sons in­volved in the pro­ceed­ings and their leg­al agents, un­der cau­tion as to Art­icle 292 SCC¹⁸, to main­tain con­fid­en­ti­al­ity with re­gard to the pro­ceed­ings and the per­sons con­cerned if the ob­ject of the pro­ceed­ings or a private in­terest so re­quires. A time lim­it must be placed on this ob­lig­a­tion.

¹ The pub­lic pro­sec­utor, the courts and, with the con­sent of the courts, the po­lice may provide the pub­lic with in­form­a­tion on pending pro­ceed­ings where this is re­quired:

a.

so that the pub­lic may as­sist in en­quir­ies in­to of­fences or in loc­at­ing sus­pects;

b.

to warn or re­as­sure the pub­lic;

c.

to cor­rect in­ac­cur­ate re­ports or ru­mours;

d.

due to the spe­cial im­port­ance of a case.

² The po­lice may also in­form the pub­lic on their own ini­ti­at­ive about ac­ci­dents and of­fences without nam­ing the per­sons in­volved.

³ When provid­ing in­form­a­tion to the pub­lic, the pre­sump­tion of in­no­cence and the per­son­al pri­vacy of the per­sons con­cerned must be ob­served.

⁴ In cases in­volving a vic­tim, au­thor­it­ies and private in­di­vidu­als may only identi­fy the vic­tim or provide in­form­a­tion that en­ables his or her iden­ti­fic­a­tion out­side pub­lic court pro­ceed­ings if:

a.

the as­sist­ance of the pub­lic in en­quir­ies in­to a felony or in tra­cing sus­pects is re­quired; or

b.

the vic­tim or his or her sur­viv­ors con­sent.

¹ Where an ac­cused is serving a sen­tence or sub­ject to a crim­in­al meas­ure, the crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall in­form the au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for the ex­e­cu­tion of sen­tences or meas­ures of any new crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings and any de­cisions is­sued.

² The crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall in­form the so­cial ser­vices and child and adult pro­tec­tion au­thor­it­ies of any crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings that have been ini­ti­ated and of any de­cisions in crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings if this is re­quired for the pro­tec­tion of an ac­cused or a per­son suf­fer­ing harm or his or her next-of-kin.¹⁹

³ If they es­tab­lish in the pro­sec­u­tion of of­fences in which minors are in­volved that fur­ther meas­ures are re­quired, they shall in­form the child pro­tec­tion au­thor­it­ies im­me­di­ately.²⁰

^3bis The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall no­ti­fy the De­fence Group of pending crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings against mem­bers of the armed forces or po­ten­tial con­scripts if there are ser­i­ous in­dic­a­tions or oth­er evid­ence that the per­son con­cerned could use a fire­arm to harm them­selves or oth­er per­sons.²¹

⁴ The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons may re­quire or au­thor­ise the crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies to make fur­ther com­mu­nic­a­tions to au­thor­it­ies.

¹ The state­ments of the parties, the or­al de­cisions of the au­thor­it­ies and any oth­er pro­ced­ur­al acts that are not car­ried out in writ­ing shall be re­cor­ded.

² The clerk of court, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings and, where ap­plic­able, the in­ter­pret­er or trans­lat­or shall con­firm the ac­cur­acy of the re­cord.

³ The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings is re­spons­ible for en­sur­ing that pro­ced­ur­al acts are com­pletely and cor­rectly re­cor­ded.

⁴ He or she may or­der that an au­dio or video re­cord­ing of all or part of a pro­ced­ur­al act be made, in ad­di­tion to its be­ing re­cor­ded in writ­ing. He or she shall give those present ad­vance no­tice of such a re­cord­ing.

The re­cords of pro­ceed­ings con­tain de­tails of all the es­sen­tial pro­ced­ur­al acts and in par­tic­u­lar provide in­form­a­tion on:

a.

the nature, place, date and time of the pro­ced­ur­al acts;

b.

the names of the par­ti­cipant mem­bers of au­thor­it­ies, the parties, their leg­al agents and any oth­er per­sons present;

c.

the ap­plic­a­tions of the parties;

d.

the cau­tion giv­en re­gard­ing the rights and ob­lig­a­tions of the per­sons ex­amined;

e.

the state­ments made by the per­sons ex­amined;

f.

the course of events in the pro­ceed­ings, the in­struc­tions giv­en by the crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity and com­pli­ance with the form­al re­quire­ments for the in­di­vidu­al pro­ced­ur­al acts;

g.

the files and oth­er evid­ence sub­mit­ted by the per­sons in­volved in the pro­ceed­ings or oth­er­wise pro­duced in the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings;

h.

the de­cisions and the grounds there­for, un­less these are sep­ar­ately in­cluded in the files.

¹ The state­ments of the parties, wit­nesses, per­sons provid­ing in­form­a­tion and ex­pert wit­nesses shall be re­cor­ded as they are made.

² The re­cord is made in the lan­guage of the pro­ceed­ings, but im­port­ant state­ments must if pos­sible be re­cor­ded in the lan­guage in which the per­son ex­amined makes them.

³ De­cis­ive ques­tions and an­swers shall be re­cor­ded ver­batim.

⁴ The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may per­mit the per­son ex­amined to dic­tate his or her own state­ments.

⁵ On con­clu­sion of the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing, the re­cord shall be read out to the per­son ex­amined or giv­en to him or her to read. Once aware of its con­tent, the per­son ex­amined must sign the re­cord and ini­tial each page. If he or she re­fuses to read or sign the re­cord, the re­fus­al and reas­ons giv­en for do­ing so shall be noted in the re­cord.

^5bis If the ex­am­in­a­tion in the main hear­ing is re­cor­ded us­ing tech­nic­al aids, the court may dis­pense with read­ing the tran­script back to the per­son ex­amined and or giv­ing that per­son the tran­script to read and sign. The re­cord­ings are placed in the case files.²²

⁶ In the case of hear­ings by means of video con­fer­ence, the per­son ex­amined shall make an or­al de­clar­a­tion that he or she un­der­stands the con­tent of the re­cord in­stead of sign­ing and ini­tial­ling the same. The de­clar­a­tion shall be noted in the re­cord.

⁷ If re­cords writ­ten by hand are not eas­ily legible or if the state­ments have been re­cor­ded in short­hand, a legible copy shall be pre­pared im­me­di­ately. Notes shall be pre­served un­til the con­clu­sion of the pro­ceed­ings.²³

¹ Ob­vi­ous er­rors shall be cor­rec­ted by the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings and the clerk of court; the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall there­after no­ti­fy the parties of the cor­rec­tions.

² The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall de­cide on re­quests to have the re­cords cor­rec­ted.

³ Cor­rec­tions, al­ter­a­tions, de­le­tions and ad­di­tions shall be cer­ti­fied by the clerk of court and the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings. Any al­ter­a­tions to the con­tent shall be made in such a man­ner that the ori­gin­al re­cord re­mains re­cog­nis­able.

¹ De­cisions that de­term­ine sub­stant­ive crim­in­al or civil is­sues are is­sued in the form of a judg­ment. Oth­er de­cisions, if made by a ju­di­cial au­thor­ity com­pris­ing two or more mem­bers, are is­sued in the form of a de­cree, or if they are made by a single per­son, in the form of a rul­ing. The pro­vi­sions on sum­mary pen­alty or­der pro­ced­ures are re­served.

² De­cisions are is­sued in writ­ing and con­tain a state­ment of the grounds. They are signed by the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings and the clerk of court and are served on the parties.

³ Simple pro­ced­ur­al de­crees and rul­ings do not re­quire to be is­sued in any spe­cif­ic form or to con­tain a state­ment of grounds; they are noted in the case re­cords and no­ti­fied to the parties in a suit­able man­ner.

¹ Judg­ments and oth­er de­cisions con­clud­ing pro­ceed­ings con­tain:

a.

an in­tro­duc­tion;

b.

a state­ment of the grounds;

c.

con­clu­sions;

d.

if sub­ject to ap­peal: in­struc­tions on ap­pel­late rem­ed­ies.

² The in­tro­duc­tion con­tains:

a.

de­tails of the crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity and its mem­bers who par­ti­cip­ated in mak­ing the de­cision;

b.

the date of the de­cision;

c.

suf­fi­cient de­tails of the parties and of their leg­al agents;

d.

in the case of judg­ments, the fi­nal sub­mis­sions made by the parties.

³ The state­ment of the grounds con­tains:

a.

in the case of judg­ments: an ap­prais­al of the fac­tu­al and leg­al is­sues re­lat­ing to the con­duct in­crim­in­at­ing the ac­cused, and an ex­plan­a­tion of why any sanc­tions, in­cid­ent­al leg­al or­ders and costs or dam­ages were im­posed;

b.

in the case of oth­er de­cisions con­clud­ing pro­ceed­ings: the reas­ons for con­clud­ing the pro­ceed­ings.

⁴ The con­clu­sions con­tain:

a.

de­tails of the stat­utory pro­vi­sions;

b.

in the case of judg­ments: the ver­dict and de­cisions on re­lated sanc­tions, costs and dam­ages and any civil claims;

c.

in the case of oth­er de­cisions con­clud­ing pro­ceed­ings: the or­der con­clud­ing the pro­ceed­ings;

d.

the sub­sequent de­cisions of the court;

e.

the de­cision on the in­cid­ent­al leg­al or­ders;

f.

the de­tails of the per­sons and au­thor­it­ies who are to re­ceive a copy of the de­cision or of the con­clu­sions.

¹ The court of first in­stance shall dis­pense with a writ­ten state­ment of the grounds if it:

a.

states the grounds for the judg­ment or­ally; and

b.

it does not im­pose a cus­todi­al sen­tence of more than two years, in­def­in­ite in­car­cer­a­tion un­der Art­icle 64 SCC²⁴, treat­ment in terms of Art­icle 59 para­graph 3 SCC or, in the case of sus­pen­ded sanc­tions to be re­voked sim­ul­tan­eously, a depriva­tion of liberty of more than two years.

² The court shall provide the parties ret­ro­spect­ively with a writ­ten judg­ment stat­ing the grounds if:

a.

a party re­quests the same with­in 10 days of ser­vice of the con­clu­sions;

b.

a party files an ap­peal.

³ If it is only the private claimant who re­quests a writ­ten judg­ment stat­ing the grounds or who ap­peals, the court shall provide a state­ment of grounds only to the ex­tent that this relates to the crim­in­al con­duct to the pre­ju­dice of the private claimant and to his or her civil claims.

⁴ In the ap­pel­late pro­ceed­ings, the court may refer to the grounds stated by the lower court in its ap­prais­al of the fac­tu­al and the leg­al is­sues in the case.

¹ If the con­clu­sions to the de­cision are un­clear, con­tra­dict­ory or in­com­plete, or if they are in­con­sist­ent with the grounds, the crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity that made the de­cision shall ex­plain or cor­rect the de­cision on the ap­plic­a­tion of a party or on its own ini­ti­at­ive.

² The ap­plic­a­tion must be sub­mit­ted in writ­ing, in­dic­at­ing the mat­ters that are con­tested or the amend­ment that are re­ques­ted.

³ The crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity shall al­low the oth­er parties the op­por­tun­ity to com­ment on the ap­plic­a­tion.

⁴ No­tice of the ex­plan­a­tion for or cor­rec­tions to the de­cision shall be giv­en to the parties.

¹ If the pro­ceed­ings are pub­lic, the court shall give no­tice of the judg­ment or­ally on con­clu­sion of its de­lib­er­a­tions and state the grounds in brief.

² The court shall provide the parties with a writ­ten copy of the con­clu­sions at the end of the main hear­ing or serve it on the parties with­in 5 days.

³ If the court is un­able to is­sue the judg­ment im­me­di­ately, it shall do so as soon as pos­sible and give no­tice of the judg­ment in re­arranged main hear­ing. If in such an event the parties waive their right to have the judg­ment is­sued pub­licly, the court shall serve the con­clu­sions of the judg­ment on them im­me­di­ately after it has been reached.

⁴ If the court has to state grounds for the judg­ment, it shall serve the judg­ment with a full state­ment of grounds on the ac­cused and the pub­lic pro­sec­utor with­in 60 days, or by way of ex­cep­tion 90 days. The oth­er parties shall be served only with those parts of the judg­ment in which their ap­plic­a­tions are men­tioned.

⁵ The crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity shall give no­tice of simple pro­ced­ur­al de­crees or rul­ings to the parties in writ­ing or or­ally.

⁶ No­tice of de­cisions shall be giv­en to oth­er au­thor­it­ies in ac­cord­ance with fed­er­al and can­ton­al law, no­tice of ap­peal de­cisions shall also be giv­en to the lower court, and no­tice of leg­ally bind­ing de­cisions shall if ne­ces­sary be giv­en to the au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for the ex­e­cu­tion of sen­tences and meas­ures and to the au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for the re­gister of con­vic­tions.

¹ The crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall is­sue com­mu­nic­a­tions in writ­ing, un­less this Code provides oth­er­wise.

² Ser­vice shall be ef­fected by re­gistered mail or in any oth­er way provided con­firm­a­tion of re­ceipt is ob­tained, and in par­tic­u­lar by per­son­al ser­vice by the po­lice

³ It is ef­fected if the de­liv­ery is ac­cep­ted by ad­dress­ee or by an em­ploy­ee there­of or a per­son liv­ing in the same house­hold who is at least 16 years old, un­less the law en­force­ment au­thor­ity has in­struc­ted that de­liv­ery be made to the ad­dress­ee in per­son.

⁴ It is also deemed to be ef­fected:

a.

in the case of a de­liv­ery by re­gistered mail that is not col­lec­ted: on the sev­enth day fol­low­ing the un­suc­cess­ful at­tempt at ser­vice, provided the per­son is ex­pect­ing the de­liv­ery;

b.

in the case of per­son­al ser­vice, if the ad­dress­ee re­fuses to ac­cept ser­vice and this is re­cor­ded by the mes­sen­ger: on the day of re­fus­al.

¹ With the con­sent of the per­son con­cerned, com­mu­nic­a­tions may be served elec­tron­ic­ally. They must bear an elec­tron­ic sig­na­ture in ac­cord­ance with the Fed­er­al Act of 18 March 2016²⁶ on Elec­tron­ic Sig­na­tures.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late:

a.

the sig­na­ture to be used;

b.

the format for com­mu­nic­a­tions and their at­tach­ments;

c.

the meth­od of trans­mis­sion;

d.

the point in time at which the com­mu­nic­a­tion is deemed to have been served.

¹ Com­mu­nic­a­tions must be served on ad­dress­ees at their dom­i­cile, their ha­bitu­al place of res­id­ence or their re­gistered of­fice.

² Parties and leg­al agents whose dom­i­cile, ha­bitu­al place of res­id­ence or re­gistered of­fice is abroad must provide an ad­dress for ser­vice in Switzer­land; pro­vi­sions of in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments un­der which com­mu­nic­a­tions may be served dir­ectly are re­served.

³ Com­mu­nic­a­tions ad­dress to parties who have ap­poin­ted a leg­al agent are val­idly served if sent to the agent.

⁴ Where a party is re­quired to ap­pear per­son­ally at a hear­ing or must per­son­ally carry out a pro­ced­ur­al act, the re­lated com­mu­nic­a­tion shall be served dir­ectly on that party. A copy shall be sent to the leg­al agent.

¹ Ser­vice shall be ef­fected by pub­lic­a­tion in an of­fi­cial gaz­ette des­ig­nated by the Con­fed­er­a­tion or the can­ton where:

a.

the where­abouts of the ad­dress­ee are un­known and can­not be as­cer­tained des­pite mak­ing reas­on­able en­quir­ies;

b.

ser­vice is im­possible or would lead to ex­cep­tion­al in­con­veni­ence;

c.

a party or his or her leg­al agent with dom­i­cile, ha­bitu­al res­id­ence or re­gistered of­fice abroad has failed to provide an ad­dress for ser­vice in Switzer­land.

² Ser­vice is deemed to be ef­fected on the day of pub­lic­a­tion.

³ In the case of fi­nal judg­ments, only the con­clu­sions of the judg­ment shall be pub­lished.

⁴ De­cisions to take no pro­ceed­ings and sum­mary pen­alty or­ders are deemed to be served without pub­lic­a­tion be­ing re­quired.

¹ Stat­utory time lim­its may not be ex­ten­ded.

² There are no court hol­i­days in crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings.

¹ Time lim­its that are triggered by a com­mu­nic­a­tion or the oc­cur­rence of an event be­gin to run from the fol­low­ing day.

² If the time lim­it is due to ex­pire on a Sat­urday, a Sunday or a pub­lic hol­i­day re­cog­nised un­der fed­er­al or can­ton­al law, it shall ex­pire on the next work­ing day. The mat­ter shall be de­term­ined by the law of the can­ton in which the party or his or her leg­al agent is res­id­ent or has its re­gistered of­fice.²⁷

¹ The time lim­it is com­plied with if the pro­ced­ur­al act is car­ried out to the sat­is­fac­tion of the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity on the day of ex­piry at the latest.

² Sub­mis­sions must be de­livered on the day of ex­piry of the time lim­it at the latest to the crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity or handed for de­liv­ery to Swis­s­Post, a Swiss dip­lo­mat­ic or con­su­lar rep­res­ent­a­tion or, in the case of per­sons in cus­tody, the gov­ernor of the in­sti­tu­tion.

³ In case of elec­tron­ic sub­mis­sion, the rel­ev­ant time for com­pli­ance with a time lim­it is that at which the re­ceipt is is­sued that con­firms that all the steps have been com­pleted that the party must carry out for trans­mis­sion.²⁸

⁴ The time lim­it is also deemed to be com­plied with if the sub­mis­sion is re­ceived by a Swiss au­thor­ity not com­pet­ent in the mat­ter on the day of ex­piry at the latest. This au­thor­ity shall pass the sub­mis­sion on im­me­di­ately to the com­pet­ent crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity.

⁵ The time lim­it for mak­ing a pay­ment to a crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity is com­plied with if the amount due is handed to Swis­s­Post or is deb­ited from a postal or bank ac­count in Switzer­land in fa­vour of the crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity on the day of ex­piry at the latest.

The au­thor­it­ies may ex­tend time lim­its and post­pone hear­ings ex of­fi­cio or in re­sponse to an ap­plic­a­tion. The ap­plic­a­tion must be made be­fore the ex­piry of the time lim­it and be ad­equately jus­ti­fied.

A party is in de­fault if he or she fails to carry out a pro­ced­ur­al act in time or fails to ap­pear for a hear­ing.

¹ Where a party has failed to com­ply with a time lim­it and has thus in­curred a sig­ni­fic­ant and ir­re­medi­able loss of rights, he or she may re­quest that a new time lim­it be fixed; in do­ing so he or she must cred­ibly show that he or she was not at fault for the fail­ure to com­ply with the time lim­it.

² The ap­plic­a­tion must be made in writ­ing with a state­ment of reas­ons and sub­mit­ted with­in 30 days of the reas­on for de­fault ceas­ing to ap­ply to the au­thor­ity be­fore which the rel­ev­ant pro­ced­ur­al act should have been car­ried out. The rel­ev­ant pro­ced­ur­al act must be car­ried out with­in the same time lim­it.

³ The ap­plic­a­tion only has sus­pens­ive ef­fect if the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity grants the same.

⁴ The crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity shall de­cide on the ap­plic­a­tion in writ­ten pro­ceed­ings.

⁵ Para­graphs 1–4 ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis in the event of fail­ure to at­tend a hear­ing. If a new hear­ing is gran­ted, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall fix a new date. The pro­vi­sions on pro­ceed­ings in ab­sen­tia are re­served.

¹ Per­son­al data must be ob­tained from the per­son con­cerned or with that per­son's know­ledge un­less the pro­ceed­ings would be oth­er­wise be pre­ju­diced or un­reas­on­able in­con­veni­ence or ex­pense would be in­curred.

² If per­son­al data is ob­tained without the know­ledge of the per­son con­cerned, that per­son must be no­ti­fied there­of im­me­di­ately. Where over­rid­ing pub­lic or private in­terests so re­quire, no­ti­fic­a­tion may be dis­pensed with or post­poned.

When pro­cessing per­son­al data, the com­pet­ent crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall en­sure that they make a dis­tinc­tion, as far as pos­sible:

a.

between the dif­fer­ent cat­egor­ies of data sub­jects;

b.

between per­son­al data based on facts and per­son­al data based on per­son­al as­sess­ments.

¹ The crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity may dis­close per­son­al data from pending pro­ceed­ings for use in oth­er pending pro­ceed­ings if it is an­ti­cip­ated that the data may provide es­sen­tial in­form­a­tion.

² The fore­go­ing para­graph does not ap­ply to:

a.

Art­icles 11, 13, 14 and 20 of the Fed­er­al Act of 21 March 1997³⁰ on Meas­ures to Safe­guard In­tern­al Se­cur­ity;

b.

the reg­u­la­tions of the Fed­er­al Act of 13 June 2008³¹ on the Fed­er­al Po­lice In­form­a­tion Sys­tems;

c.

the reg­u­la­tions of the Fed­er­al Act of 7 Oc­to­ber 1994³² on the Cent­ral Of­fices of the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Po­lice.³³

As long as pro­ceed­ings are pending, the parties and the oth­er par­ti­cipants in the pro­ceed­ings have, in ac­cord­ance with their right to in­spect case doc­u­ments, the right to in­form­a­tion on per­son­al data re­lat­ing to them that has been pro­cessed.

¹ Where per­son­al data proves to be in­cor­rect, the rel­ev­ant crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall cor­rect it im­me­di­ately.

² They shall im­me­di­ately no­ti­fy au­thor­it­ies to which they have trans­mit­ted, made avail­able or dis­closed the data of the cor­rec­tions.³⁴

¹ After con­clu­sion of the pro­ceed­ings, the pro­cessing of per­son­al data, pro­ced­ures and leg­al pro­tec­tion are gov­erned by the pro­vi­sions of fed­er­al and can­ton­al data pro­tec­tion law.

² The peri­od of re­ten­tion of per­son­al data after con­clu­sion of pro­ceed­ings is gov­erned by Art­icle 103.

³ The pro­vi­sions of the Fed­er­al Act of 7 Oc­to­ber 1994³⁵ on the Cent­ral Of­fices of the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Po­lice, the Fed­er­al Act of 13 June 2008³⁶ on the Fed­er­al Po­lice In­form­a­tion Sys­tems and the pro­vi­sions of this Code on identi­fy­ing doc­u­ments and DNA pro­files are re­served.³⁷

¹ A case file shall be opened for each crim­in­al case. This file shall con­tain:

a.

the re­cords of pro­ceed­ings and ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ings;

b.

the doc­u­ments com­plied by the crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity;

c.

the doc­u­ments sub­mit­ted by the parties.

² The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall en­sure the sys­tem­at­ic fil­ing of doc­u­ments and se­quen­tial in­dex­ing; in simple cases, an in­dex is not re­quired.

¹ The parties may in­spect the doc­u­ments re­lat­ing to the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings at the latest fol­low­ing the first in­ter­view with the ac­cused and the gath­er­ing of the oth­er most im­port­ant evid­ence by the pub­lic pro­sec­utor; Art­icle 108 is re­served.

² Oth­er au­thor­it­ies may in­spect the case doc­u­ments if they need to do so for the pur­poses of pending civil, crim­in­al or ad­min­is­trat­ive pro­ceed­ings and in­spec­tion is not con­trary to any over­rid­ing pub­lic or private in­terests.

³ Third parties may in­spect the case doc­u­ments if they claim to have an aca­dem­ic or oth­er le­git­im­ate in­terest in do­ing so and in­spec­tion is not con­trary to any over­rid­ing pub­lic or private in­terests.

¹ The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings de­cides on wheth­er case doc­u­ments may be in­spec­ted. He or she shall take the meas­ures re­quired to pre­vent ab­uses and delays and to pro­tect le­git­im­ate in­terests in con­fid­en­ti­al­ity.

² The case doc­u­ments must be in­spec­ted at the of­fices of the rel­ev­ant crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity or those of an­oth­er crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity in mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings. Nor­mally they shall be de­livered to oth­er au­thor­it­ies or the leg­al agents for the parties.

³ Any per­son who is en­titled to in­spect case doc­u­ments may re­quest cop­ies there­of for a fee.

¹ The case doc­u­ments must be pre­served at least un­til con­clu­sion of the time lim­its for pro­sec­u­tion and for the ex­e­cu­tion of the sen­tence have ex­pired.

² The fore­go­ing para­graph does not ap­ply to ori­gin­al doc­u­ments in­cluded in the case file; they must be re­turned to the per­sons en­titled thereto against writ­ten ac­know­ledge­ment of re­ceipt as soon as the crim­in­al case has been de­cided by a fi­nal judg­ment.

¹ Parties are:

a.

the ac­cused;

b.

the private claimant;

c.

in the main hear­ing and in ap­pel­late pro­ceed­ings: the pub­lic pro­sec­utor.

² The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons may grant full or lim­ited party rights to oth­er au­thor­it­ies that are re­quired to safe­guard pub­lic in­terests.

¹ Oth­er per­sons in­volved in the pro­ceed­ings are:

a.

per­sons suf­fer­ing harm;

b.

the per­son who has re­por­ted the of­fence;

c.

wit­nesses;

d.

per­sons provid­ing in­form­a­tion;

e.

ex­pert wit­nesses;

f.

third parties who have suffered det­ri­ment due to pro­ced­ur­al acts.

² If the rights of per­sons in­volved in the pro­ceed­ings named in para­graph 1 are dir­ectly af­fected, they shall, in or­der to safe­guard their in­terests, be en­titled to the pro­ced­ur­al rights of a party.

¹ The party may val­idly carry out pro­ced­ur­al acts only if he or she has the ca­pa­city to act.

² A per­son lack­ing the ca­pa­city to act shall be rep­res­en­ted by his or her stat­utory rep­res­ent­at­ive.

³ A per­son with ca­pa­city of judge­ment who lacks the ca­pa­city to act may, in ad­di­tion to his or her leg­al agent, ex­er­cise pro­ced­ur­al rights that are of a highly per­son­al nature.

¹ The parties have the right to be heard; in par­tic­u­lar, they have the right:

a.

to in­spect case doc­u­ments;

b.

to par­ti­cip­ate in pro­ced­ur­al acts

c.

to ap­point a leg­al agent;

d.

to com­ment on the case and on the pro­ceed­ings;

e.

to re­quest that fur­ther evid­ence be taken.

² The crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall no­ti­fy parties who are un­aware of the law of their rights.

¹ The crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies may re­strict the right to be heard if:

a.

there is jus­ti­fied sus­pi­cion that a party is ab­us­ing his or her rights;

b.

this is re­quired for the safety of per­sons or to safe­guard pub­lic or private in­terests in pre­serving con­fid­en­ti­al­ity.

² Re­stric­tions in re­la­tion to leg­al agents are only per­mit­ted if the leg­al agent gives per­son­al cause for im­pos­ing a re­stric­tion.

³ Re­stric­tions must be lim­ited in time or to in­di­vidu­al pro­ced­ur­al acts.

⁴ If the reas­on for im­pos­ing the re­stric­tion con­tin­ues to ap­ply, the crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies may base their de­cisions on files that have not been dis­closed to a party only if that party has been in­formed of the es­sen­tial con­tent there­of.

⁵ If the reas­on for the re­stric­tion has ceased to ap­ply, the right to be heard must be gran­ted in a suit­able form ret­ro­spect­ively.

¹ The parties may make sub­mis­sions to the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings at any time, sub­ject to the spe­cif­ic pro­vi­sions there­on in this Code.

² The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall ex­am­ine the sub­mis­sions and give the oth­er parties the op­por­tun­ity to com­ment.

¹ Sub­mis­sions may be made in writ­ing or or­ally on re­cord. Writ­ten sub­mis­sions must be dated and signed.

² In the case of elec­tron­ic sub­mis­sion, the sub­mis­sion and its en­clos­ures must bear a qual­i­fied elec­tron­ic sig­na­ture in ac­cord­ance with the Fed­er­al Act of 18 March 2016³⁸ on Elec­tron­ic Sig­na­tures. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late:

a.

the format for sub­mis­sions and their at­tach­ments;

b.

the meth­od of trans­mis­sion;

c.

the re­quire­ments for re­quest­ing the sub­mis­sion of doc­u­ments in pa­per form in the event of tech­nic­al prob­lems.³⁹

³ Pro­ced­ur­al acts are not oth­er­wise sub­ject to any form­al re­quire­ments un­less this Code provides oth­er­wise.

⁴ The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may re­ject il­legible, in­com­pre­hens­ible, im­prop­er or in­co­her­ent sub­mis­sions; they shall fix a dead­line for the re­vi­sion of the sub­mis­sion and give no­tice that the sub­mis­sion if not re­vised, will not be con­sidered.

¹ For the pur­poses of this Code, the ac­cused is a per­son sus­pec­ted, ac­cused of or charged with an of­fence in a re­port of a crim­in­al of­fence, a crim­in­al com­plaint or in a pro­ced­ur­al act car­ried out by a crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity.

² The rights and the ob­lig­a­tions of an ac­cused also ap­ply to per­sons in re­spect of whom it is in­ten­ded to bring new pro­ceed­ings fol­low­ing aban­don­ment or a judg­ment in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 323 or Art­icles 410–415.

¹ In crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings against a cor­por­ate un­der­tak­ing, the un­der­tak­ing shall be rep­res­en­ted by a single per­son who has un­lim­ited au­thor­ity to rep­res­ent the un­der­tak­ing in private law mat­ters.

² If the un­der­tak­ing fails to ap­point such a rep­res­ent­at­ive with­in a reas­on­able time, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall de­cide which of the per­sons au­thor­ised to rep­res­ent the un­der­tak­ing in private law mat­ters will rep­res­ent the un­der­tak­ing in the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings.

³ If a crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion is opened against the per­son rep­res­ent­ing the un­der­tak­ing in the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings in re­spect of the same or re­lated cir­cum­stances, the un­der­tak­ing must ap­point an­oth­er rep­res­ent­at­ive. If ne­ces­sary, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall ap­point an­oth­er per­son to rep­res­ent the un­der­tak­ing in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2, or if no one is avail­able, a suit­able third party.

⁴ If pro­ceed­ings are brought against a nat­ur­al per­son and an un­der­tak­ing in re­spect of the same or re­lated cir­cum­stances, the two pro­ceed­ings may be com­bined.

¹ The ac­cused may not be com­pelled to in­crim­in­ate him or her­self. In par­tic­u­lar, the ac­cused is en­titled to re­fuse to make a state­ment or to co­oper­ate in the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings. He or she must however sub­mit to the com­puls­ory meas­ures provided for by the law.

² The pro­ceed­ings con­tin­ue ir­re­spect­ive of wheth­er the ac­cused co­oper­ates.

¹ An ac­cused is fit to plead if he or she is phys­ic­ally and men­tally cap­able of un­der­stand­ing the pro­ceed­ings.

² In the event of tem­por­ary un­fit­ness to plead, pro­ced­ur­al acts that can­not be delayed shall be car­ried out in the pres­ence of the de­fence.

³ If the ac­cused re­mains un­fit to plead, the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings shall be sus­pen­ded or aban­doned. The spe­cial pro­vi­sions on pro­ceed­ings against an ac­cused who is not leg­ally re­spons­ible due to a men­tal dis­order are re­served.

¹ A per­son suf­fer­ing harm is a per­son whose rights have been dir­ectly vi­ol­ated by the of­fence.

² A per­son en­titled to file a crim­in­al com­plaint is deemed in every case to be a per­son suf­fer­ing harm.

¹ A vic­tim is a per­son suf­fer­ing harm whose phys­ic­al, sexu­al or men­tal in­teg­rity has been dir­ectly and ad­versely af­fected by the of­fence.

² Re­l­at­ives of the vic­tim are his or her spouse, chil­dren and par­ents, and per­sons closely re­lated to him or her in a sim­il­ar way.

¹ Vic­tims have spe­cial rights, in par­tic­u­lar:

a.

the right to pro­tec­tion of per­son­al pri­vacy (Art. 70 para. 1 let. a, 74 para. 4, 152 para. 1);

b.

the right to be ac­com­pan­ied by a con­fid­ant (Art. 70 para. 2, 152 para. 2);

c.

the right to pro­tect­ive meas­ures (Art. 152–154);

d.

the right to re­main si­lent (Art. 169 para. 4);

e.

the right to in­form­a­tion (Art. 305 and 330 para. 3);

f.

the right to a spe­cial com­pos­i­tion of the court (Art. 335 para. 4).

² In the case of vic­tims un­der the age of 18, ad­di­tion­al spe­cial pro­vi­sions pro­tect­ing per­son­al pri­vacy ap­ply, in par­tic­u­lar re­lat­ing to:

a.

re­stric­tions on con­front­a­tion hear­ings with the ac­cused (Art. 154 para. 4);

b.

spe­cial pro­tect­ive meas­ures dur­ing ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ings (Art. 154 para. 2–4);

c.

aban­don­ment of the pro­ceed­ings (Art. 319 para. 2).

³ If re­l­at­ives of a vic­tim file civil claims, they are en­titled to the same rights as the vic­tim.

¹ A private claimant is a per­son suf­fer­ing harm who ex­pressly de­clares that he or she wishes to par­ti­cip­ate in the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings as a crim­in­al or civil claimant.

² The fil­ing of a crim­in­al com­plaint is re­garded as be­ing equi­val­ent to such a de­clar­a­tion.

³ The de­clar­a­tion must be made to a crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity by the end of the pre­lim­in­ary pro­ceed­ings at the latest.

⁴ If a per­son suf­fer­ing harm has not made a de­clar­a­tion of his or her own vo­li­tion, so the pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall ad­vise the per­son of this pos­sib­il­ity after open­ing the pre­lim­in­ary pro­ceed­ings.

¹ A per­son suf­fer­ing harm may sub­mit a writ­ten de­clar­a­tion in writ­ing or make the de­clar­a­tion or­ally on re­cord.

² In the de­clar­a­tion the per­son suf­fer­ing harm may do either or both of the fol­low­ing:

a.

re­quest the pro­sec­u­tion and pun­ish­ment of the per­son re­spons­ible for the of­fence (a crim­in­al com­plaint);

b.

file private law claims based on the of­fence (a civil claim).

¹ The per­son suf­fer­ing harm may at any time de­clare either in writ­ing or or­ally on re­cord that he or she waives his or her rights. The waiver is fi­nal.

² Un­less the waiver is ex­pressly lim­ited, it shall be deemed to cov­er both the crim­in­al and the civil pro­ceed­ings.

¹ If the per­son suf­fer­ing harm dies without waiv­ing his or her pro­ced­ur­al rights as a private claimant, such rights pass to his or her re­l­at­ives as defined in Art­icle 110 para­graph 1 SCC⁴⁰ in ac­cord­ance with their rank­ing un­der the law of suc­ces­sion.

² Any per­son who by law ac­quires the rights as a claimant of a per­son suf­fer­ing harm does so only in re­spect of the civil claim and has only those pro­ced­ur­al rights that re­late dir­ectly to the as­ser­tion of the civil claim.

¹ The per­son suf­fer­ing harm may bring civil claims based on the of­fence as a private claimant in the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings.

² The re­l­at­ives of the vic­tim have the same right provided they bring their own civil claims against the ac­cused.

³ The civil pro­ceed­ings be­come pending when a de­clar­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 119 para­graph 2 let­ter b is made.

⁴ If a private claimant with­draws the civil claim be­fore the end of the main hear­ing be­fore the court of first in­stance, they may file the claim again in civil pro­ceed­ings.

¹ The civil claim must if pos­sible be quan­ti­fied in the de­clar­a­tion made in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 119 and a brief state­ment of the grounds must be provided, de­tail­ing the rel­ev­ant evid­ence.

² The quan­ti­fic­a­tion and state­ment of the grounds must be spe­cified in the party sub­mis­sions at the latest.

¹ The court hear­ing the crim­in­al case shall judge the civil claim re­gard­less of the amount in­volved.

² The ac­cused shall be giv­en the op­por­tun­ity to re­spond to the civil claim in the main pro­ceed­ings be­fore the court of first in­stance at the latest.

³ If the ac­cused ac­cepts the civil claim, this shall be placed on re­cord and re­cor­ded in the de­cision con­clud­ing the pro­ceed­ings.

¹ A private claimant, with the ex­cep­tion of the vic­tim, must on ap­plic­a­tion by the ac­cused lodge se­cur­ity in re­spect of the ac­cused's prob­able costs arising from the civil claim if:

a.

he or she is not dom­i­ciled or has no re­gistered of­fice in Switzer­land;

b.

he or she ap­pears to be in­solv­ent, in par­tic­u­lar if bank­ruptcy pro­ceed­ings have been opened or com­pos­i­tion pro­ceed­ings are on­go­ing or if cer­ti­fic­ates of loss have been is­sued;

c.

for oth­er reas­ons, there is reas­on to fear that the ac­cused's claim could be ser­i­ously jeop­ard­ised or frus­trated.

² The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings for the court shall is­sue a fi­nal judg­ment on the ap­plic­a­tion. He or she shall de­term­ine the amount of se­cur­ity and fix a time lim­it for its pay­ment.

³ The se­cur­ity may be paid in cash or take the form of a guar­an­tee from a bank per­man­ently es­tab­lished in Switzer­land.

⁴ It may be ret­ro­spect­ively in­creased, re­duced or re­voked.

¹ The court de­cides on pending civil claims in the event that it:

a.

con­victs the ac­cused;

b.

ac­quits the ac­cused and the court is in a po­s­i­tion to make a de­cision.

² The civil claim shall be re­ferred for civil pro­ceed­ings if:

a.

the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings are aban­doned or con­cluded by means of the sum­mary pen­alty or­der pro­ced­ure;

b.

the private claimant has failed to jus­ti­fy or quanti­fy the claim suf­fi­ciently;

c.

the private claimant has failed to lodge se­cur­ity in re­spect of the claim;

d.

the ac­cused has been ac­quit­ted but the court is not in a po­s­i­tion to make a de­cision.

³ If a full as­sess­ment of the civil claim would cause un­reas­on­able ex­pense and in­con­veni­ence, the court may make a de­cision in prin­ciple on the civil claim and refer it for civil pro­ceed­ings. If pos­sible, the court shall rule on minor claims it­self.

⁴ In cases in­volving the vic­tim, the court may firstly de­cide solely on guilt and the pen­alty; there­after the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall, fol­low­ing a fur­ther hear­ing of the parties, rule as a judge sit­ting alone on the civil claim, ir­re­spect­ive of its amount.

¹ The ac­cused, the private claimant and the oth­er per­sons in­volved in the pro­ceed­ings may ap­point a leg­al agent to safe­guard their in­terests.

² The parties may ap­point two or more per­sons as leg­al agent provided this does not un­reas­on­ably delay the pro­ceed­ings. In such a case, they must des­ig­nate one agent as the prin­cip­al agent, who is au­thor­ised to carry out acts of rep­res­ent­a­tion be­fore the crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies and whose dom­i­cile is deemed to be the sole ad­dress for ser­vice.

³ The leg­al agent may act for two or more per­sons in­volved in the pro­ceed­ings, sub­ject to the re­stric­tions laid down by law and in their pro­fes­sion­al code of prac­tice.

⁴ The parties may ap­point any per­son who has the ca­pa­city to act, is of un­blem­ished repu­ta­tion and is trust­worthy; the re­stric­tions of the law gov­ern­ing the leg­al pro­fes­sion are re­served.

⁵ The de­fence of the ac­cused is re­served to law­yers who are au­thor­ised un­der the Law­yers Act of 23 June 2000⁴¹ to rep­res­ent parties in court; the fore­go­ing is sub­ject to derog­at­ing can­ton­al pro­vi­sions on the de­fence in pro­ceed­ings re­lat­ing to con­tra­ven­tions.

A de­fence law­yer is ob­liged to act solely in the in­terests the ac­cused, sub­ject to the re­stric­tions laid down by law and in the pro­fes­sion­al code of prac­tice.

¹ The ac­cused is en­titled, in any crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings and at any stage of the pro­ceed­ings either to in­struct a leg­al agent as defined in Art­icle 127 para­graph 5 to con­duct his or her de­fence (right to choose a de­fence law­yer) or, sub­ject to Art­icle 130, to con­duct his or her own de­fence.

² The ac­cused ex­er­cises his or her right to choose a de­fence law­yer by ex­ecut­ing a writ­ten power of at­tor­ney or mak­ing a de­clar­a­tion on re­cord.

A de­fence law­yer must be ap­poin­ted to rep­res­ent the ac­cused if:

a.

the peri­od on re­mand in­clud­ing the peri­od when un­der ar­rest has con­tin­ued for more than 10 days;

b.⁴²

the of­fence con­cerned car­ries a cus­todi­al sen­tence of more than a year or a cus­todi­al meas­ure or may res­ult in ex­pul­sion from Switzer­land;

c.

the ac­cused is un­able to safe­guard his or her in­terests in the pro­ceed­ings ad­equately due to his or her phys­ic­al or men­tal con­di­tion or for oth­er reas­ons, and his or her stat­utory rep­res­ent­at­ive is un­able to do so either;

d.

the pro­sec­ut­ing law­yer is ap­pear­ing in per­son be­fore the court of first in­stance or the court of ap­peal;

e.

ac­cel­er­ated pro­ceed­ings (Art. 358–362) are be­ing con­duc­ted.

¹ Where the man­dat­ory ap­point­ment of a de­fence law­yer is re­quired, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall en­sure that a de­fence law­yer is ap­poin­ted im­me­di­ately.

² If the re­quire­ments for the man­dat­ory ap­point­ment of a de­fence law­yer are ful­filled on com­mence­ment of the pre­lim­in­ary pro­ceed­ings, the de­fence law­yer must be ap­poin­ted fol­low­ing the first in­ter­view by the pub­lic pro­sec­utor, or be­fore open­ing the in­vest­ig­a­tion at the latest.

³ In cases where the ap­point­ment of a man­dat­ory de­fence law­yer is clearly re­quired but evid­ence is ob­tained be­fore a de­fence law­yer is ap­poin­ted, the evid­ence ob­tained is only ad­miss­ible if the ac­cused waives the right to have the evid­ence taken again.

¹ The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall ap­point a duty de­fence law­yer if:

a.

in the event of man­dat­ory ap­point­ment of a de­fence law­yer:

1.

the ac­cused, des­pite be­ing re­ques­ted to do so by the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings, fails to ap­point a de­fence law­yer of choice, or

2.

the de­fence law­yer of choice has been dis­missed or has resigned and the ac­cused fails to ap­point a new de­fence law­yer of choice with­in the time lim­it set;

b.

the ac­cused lacks the ne­ces­sary fin­an­cial means and re­quires a de­fence law­yer to safe­guard of his or her in­terests.

² A de­fence law­yer is re­quired to safe­guard the in­terests of the ac­cused in par­tic­u­lar if the mat­ter is not a minor case and the case in­volves fac­tu­al or leg­al is­sues that the ac­cused is not qual­i­fied to deal with alone.

³ A case is no longer re­garded as minor if it is prob­able that a cus­todi­al sen­tence of more than 4 months or a mon­et­ary pen­alty of more than 120 daily pen­alty units may be im­posed on con­vic­tion.⁴³

¹ The duty de­fence law­yer is ap­poin­ted by the per­son act­ing as dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings at the rel­ev­ant stage of the pro­ceed­ings.

² The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall if pos­sible take ac­count of the wishes of the ac­cused when ap­point­ing the duty de­fence law­yer.

¹ If there is no longer any reas­on to have a duty de­fence law­yer, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall dis­miss the law­yer.

² If the mu­tu­al trust between the ac­cused and his or her duty de­fence law­yer is ser­i­ously com­prom­ised or the pro­vi­sion of an ef­fect­ive de­fence is no longer guar­an­teed for oth­er reas­ons, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall ap­point an­oth­er per­son as the duty de­fence law­yer.

¹ The duty de­fence law­yer shall be paid in ac­cord­ance with the table of leg­al fees ap­plic­able in the Con­fed­er­a­tion or in the can­ton in which the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings were con­duc­ted.

² The pub­lic pro­sec­utor or the court passing judg­ment shall de­term­ine the fees at the end of the pro­ceed­ings.

³ The duty de­fence law­yer may file an ob­jec­tion against the de­cision on fees:

a.

with the ob­jec­tions au­thor­ity, where the de­cision was made by the pub­lic pro­sec­utor or the court of first in­stance; or

b.

with the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court, where the de­cision was made by the ob­jec­tions au­thor­ity or the can­ton­al court of ap­peal.

⁴ If the ac­cused is ordered to pay pro­ced­ur­al costs, as soon as his or her fin­an­cial cir­cum­stances per­mit, he or she must:

a.

re­pay the fees to the Con­fed­er­a­tion or the can­ton;

b.

pay the de­fence law­yer the dif­fer­ence between the of­fi­cial fees and the full fees.

⁵ The rights of the Con­fed­er­a­tion or of the can­ton are sub­ject to a time lim­it of 10 years from the time when the de­cision be­comes leg­ally bind­ing.

¹ The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall grant the private claimant full or par­tial leg­al aid for the en­force­ment of their civil claims if:

a.

the private claimant does not have the re­quired fin­an­cial re­sources; and

b.

the civil pro­ceed­ings does not ap­pear to be without any pro­spect of suc­cess.

² Leg­al aid in­cludes:

a.

re­lief from the re­quire­ment to make an ad­vance pay­ment or to provide se­cur­ity in re­spect of costs;

b.

re­lief from the re­quire­ment to pay pro­ced­ur­al costs;

c.

the ap­point­ment of a leg­al rep­res­ent­at­ive if this is ne­ces­sary to safe­guard the rights of the private claimant.

The ap­point­ment, dis­missal and change of the leg­al rep­res­ent­at­ive are gov­erned by Art­icles 133 and 134 mu­tatis mutandis.

¹ The leg­al rep­res­ent­at­ive's fees are gov­erned by Art­icle 135 mu­tatis mutandis; the fi­nal judg­ment on who must pay the costs of the leg­al rep­res­ent­at­ive and of any pro­ced­ur­al acts in re­spect of which re­lief has been gran­ted from mak­ing an ad­vance pay­ment to cov­er costs re­mains re­served.

² If the private claimant is awar­ded pro­ced­ur­al and leg­al costs to be paid by the ac­cused, the por­tion of these costs covered by leg­al aid must be re­fun­ded to the Con­fed­er­a­tion or to the can­ton.

¹ In or­der to es­tab­lish the truth, the crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall use all the leg­ally ad­miss­ible evid­ence that is rel­ev­ant in ac­cord­ance with the latest sci­entif­ic find­ings and ex­per­i­ence.

² No evid­ence shall be led on mat­ters that are ir­rel­ev­ant, ob­vi­ous, known to the crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity or already ad­equately proven in law.

¹ The use of co­er­cion, vi­ol­ence, threats, prom­ises, de­cep­tion and meth­ods that may com­prom­ise the abil­ity of the per­son con­cerned to think or de­cide freely are pro­hib­ited when tak­ing evid­ence.

² Such meth­ods re­main un­law­ful even if the per­son con­cerned con­sents to their use.

¹ Evid­ence ob­tained in vi­ol­a­tion of Art­icle 140 is not ad­miss­ible un­der any cir­cum­stances. The fore­go­ing also ap­plies where this Code de­clares evid­ence to be in­ad­miss­ible.

² Evid­ence that crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies have ob­tained by crim­in­al meth­ods or by vi­ol­at­ing reg­u­la­tions on ad­miss­ib­il­ity is in­ad­miss­ible un­less it is es­sen­tial that it be ad­mit­ted in or­der to se­cure a con­vic­tion for a ser­i­ous of­fence.

³ Evid­ence that has been ob­tained in vi­ol­a­tion of ad­min­is­trat­ive reg­u­la­tions is ad­miss­ible.

⁴ Where evid­ence that is in­ad­miss­ible un­der para­graph 2 has made it pos­sible to ob­tain ad­di­tion­al evid­ence, such evid­ence is not ad­miss­ible if it would have been im­possible to ob­tain had the pre­vi­ous evid­ence not been ob­tained.

⁵ Re­cords re­lat­ing to in­ad­miss­ible evid­ence shall be re­moved from the case doc­u­ments, held in safe­keep­ing un­til a fi­nal judg­ment has con­cluded the pro­ceed­ings, and then des­troyed.

¹ Ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ings are con­duc­ted by the pub­lic pro­sec­utor, the au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for pro­sec­ut­ing con­tra­ven­tions and the courts. The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons shall de­cide on the ex­tent to which the em­ploy­ees of these au­thor­it­ies are per­mit­ted to con­duct ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ings.

² The po­lice may ques­tion ac­cused per­sons and per­sons provid­ing in­form­a­tion. The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons may de­term­ine which po­lice of­ficers may ques­tion wit­nesses on be­half of the pub­lic pro­sec­utor.

¹ At the start of the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing, the per­son be­ing ques­tioned shall, in a lan­guage they can un­der­stand:

a.

be asked for his or her per­son­al de­tails;

b.

be ad­vised of the sub­ject mat­ter of the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings and of the ca­pa­city in which he or she is be­ing in­ter­viewed;

c.

be in­formed in full of his or her rights and ob­lig­a­tions.

² A note must be made in the re­cord that the pro­vi­sions of para­graph 1 have been com­plied with.

³ The crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity may make fur­ther en­quir­ies in re­la­tion to the iden­tity of the per­son be­ing ques­tioned.

⁴ It shall in­vite the per­son be­ing ques­tioned to com­ment on the sub­ject mat­ter of the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing.

⁵ It shall en­deav­our by means of clearly for­mu­lated ques­tions and con­ten­tions to ob­tain com­pre­hens­ive state­ments and to cla­ri­fy any con­tra­dic­tions.

⁶ The per­son be­ing ques­tioned shall make his or her state­ment on the basis of his or her re­col­lec­tions. He or she may make use of writ­ten doc­u­ments with the con­sent of the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings; these doc­u­ments shall be ad­ded to the case doc­u­ments on con­clu­sion of the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing.

⁷ Per­sons with speech or hear­ing dif­fi­culties shall be ques­tioned in writ­ing or with the as­sist­ance of a suit­ably qual­i­fied per­son.

¹ The pub­lic pro­sec­utor and the courts may con­duct an ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing by video con­fer­ence if a per­son­al ap­pear­ance by the per­son be­ing ques­tioned is not pos­sible or is only pos­sible with un­reas­on­able trouble and ex­pense.

² An au­dio and video re­cord­ing shall be made of the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing.

The crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity may in­vite a per­son be­ing ques­tioned to provide a writ­ten re­port in­stead of or in ad­di­tion to hold­ing an ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing.

¹ The per­sons be­ing ques­tioned shall be ques­tioned sep­ar­ately.

² The crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies may ar­range for per­sons, in­clud­ing those who have the right to re­fuse to give evid­ence, to con­front each oth­er. The spe­cial rights of the vic­tim are re­served.

³ They may re­quire per­sons who have been ques­tioned who will prob­ably be re­quired to con­front oth­er per­sons after the con­clu­sion of the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing to re­main at the place of the pro­ceed­ings un­til the con­front­a­tion hear­ing is held.

⁴ The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may tem­por­ar­ily ex­clude a per­son from the hear­ing if:

a.

there is a con­flict of in­terest; or

b.

the per­son must still be ques­tioned in the pro­ceed­ings as a wit­ness, a per­son provid­ing in­form­a­tion or as an ex­pert wit­ness.

¹ Parties have the right to be present when the pub­lic pro­sec­utor and the courts are tak­ing evid­ence and to put ques­tions to per­sons who have been ques­tioned. The pres­ence of the de­fence law­yer at ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ings con­duc­ted by the po­lice is gov­erned by Art­icle 159.

² Per­sons ex­er­cising a right to par­ti­cip­ate do not have the right to re­quest that the tak­ing of evid­ence be post­poned.

³ A party or his or her leg­al agent may re­quest that evid­ence be taken again if the leg­al agent or the party without a leg­al agent is pre­ven­ted from par­ti­cip­at­ing for good cause. Evid­ence need not be taken again if it would in­volve un­reas­on­able trouble and ex­pense and the right of the party to be heard, and in par­tic­u­lar the right to ask ques­tions, can be taken in­to ac­count in an­oth­er way.

⁴ Evid­ence ob­tained in vi­ol­a­tion of this Art­icle is in­ad­miss­ible against a party who was not present when it was taken.

¹ If evid­ence is taken abroad in ex­e­cu­tion of a re­quest for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance, the right of the parties to par­ti­cip­ate is sat­is­fied if they:

a.

are per­mit­ted to sub­mit ques­tions to be asked by the re­ques­ted for­eign au­thor­ity;

b.

are per­mit­ted to in­spect the re­cord once the re­quest for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance has been ex­ecuted; and

c.

are per­mit­ted to sub­mit writ­ten sup­ple­ment­ary ques­tions.

² Art­icle 147 para­graph 4 ap­plies.

¹ If there are grounds to as­sume that a wit­ness, a per­son provid­ing in­form­a­tion, an ac­cused per­son, an ex­pert wit­ness or a trans­lat­or or in­ter­pret­er, or a per­son re­lated to him or her in terms of Art­icle 168 para­graphs 1–3 could be ex­posed to a ser­i­ous danger to life and limb or any oth­er ser­i­ous pre­ju­dice by par­ti­cip­at­ing in the pro­ceed­ings, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall take the ap­pro­pri­ate pro­tect­ive meas­ures in re­sponse to an ap­plic­a­tion or ex of­fi­cio.

² The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may also suit­ably re­strict the pro­ced­ur­al rights of the parties, in par­tic­u­lar by:

a.

en­sur­ing an­onym­ity;

b.

con­duct­ing ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ings while ex­clud­ing parties or the pub­lic;

c.

es­tab­lish­ing per­son­al de­tails while ex­clud­ing parties or the pub­lic;

d.

modi­fy­ing the ap­pear­ance or voice of the per­son re­quir­ing pro­tec­tion or screen­ing the per­son from the court;

e.

lim­it­ing rights to in­spect case doc­u­ments.

³ The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may per­mit the per­son re­quir­ing pro­tec­tion to be ac­com­pan­ied by a leg­al agent or a con­fid­ant.

⁴ If a per­son un­der the age of 18 is in­ter­viewed as a wit­ness or per­son provid­ing in­form­a­tion, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may or­der fur­ther pro­tect­ive meas­ures in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 154 para­graphs 2 and 4.

⁵ The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall en­sure in the case of all pro­tect­ive meas­ures that the right of the parties to be heard is re­spec­ted and in par­tic­u­lar that the ac­cused's rights to a prop­er de­fence are re­spec­ted.

⁶ If the per­son re­quir­ing pro­tec­tion has been as­sured that his or her an­onym­ity will be pre­served, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall take ap­pro­pri­ate meas­ures to pre­vent any con­fu­sion or mis­taken iden­tity.

¹ The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may give an as­sur­ance to the per­son re­quir­ing pro­tec­tion that his or her an­onym­ity will be pre­served.

² The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall sub­mit its as­sur­ance to the com­puls­ory meas­ures court with­in 30 days for ap­prov­al; in do­ing so, it must spe­cify all the de­tails re­quired to as­sess the leg­al­ity of the meas­ure. The de­cision of the com­puls­ory meas­ures court is fi­nal.

³ If the com­puls­ory meas­ures court de­clines to ap­prove the meas­ure, any evid­ence already ob­tained sub­ject to the as­sur­ance of an­onym­ity shall be in­ad­miss­ible.

⁴ An as­sur­ance of an­onym­ity that has been ap­proved or gran­ted is bind­ing on all crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies in­volved in the case.

⁵ The per­son re­quir­ing pro­tec­tion may waive the re­quire­ment of an­onym­ity at any time.

⁶ The pub­lic pro­sec­utor and the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings in the court shall re­voke the as­sur­ance if there is clearly no longer a need for pro­tec­tion.

¹ Un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­at­ors who have been giv­en an as­sur­ance that their an­onym­ity will be pre­served have the fol­low­ing rights:

a.

to have their true iden­tity with­held throughout the en­tire pro­ceed­ings and after their con­clu­sion from every­one oth­er than the judges of the courts hear­ing the case;

b.

to have no de­tails as to their true iden­tity re­cor­ded in the case doc­u­ments.

² The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall take the re­quired pro­tect­ive meas­ures.

¹ The crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall safe­guard the per­son­al pri­vacy of the vic­tim at every stage of the pro­ceed­ings.

² The vic­tim may be ac­com­pan­ied at all pro­ced­ur­al hear­ings by a con­fid­ant in ad­di­tion to his or her leg­al agent.

³ The crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall en­sure that the vic­tim does not en­counter the ac­cused if the vic­tim so re­quests. In such a case, they shall take ac­count of the ac­cused's right to be heard in some oth­er way. In par­tic­u­lar, they may ques­tion the vic­tim while ap­ply­ing pro­tect­ive meas­ures in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 149 para­graph 2 let­ters b and d.

⁴ A con­front­a­tion hear­ing may be ordered if:

a.

the ac­cused's right to be heard can­not be guar­an­teed in any oth­er way; or

b.

the hear­ing is es­sen­tial for the pur­pose of the pro­sec­u­tion.

¹ Vic­tims of sexu­al of­fences may ask to be ques­tioned by a per­son of the same sex.

² A con­front­a­tion hear­ing with the ac­cused may be ordered against the wishes of the vic­tim only if the ac­cused's right to be heard can­not be guar­an­teed in any oth­er way.

¹ A vic­tim is a child with­in the mean­ing of this Art­icle if he or she is un­der 18 years of age at the time of the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing or con­front­a­tion hear­ing.

² The first ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing with the child must take place as quickly as pos­sible.

³ The au­thor­ity may ex­clude the con­fid­ant from the pro­ceed­ings if this per­son could ex­ert a de­cis­ive in­flu­ence on the child.

⁴ If it is evid­ent that the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing or the con­front­a­tion hear­ing could be a ser­i­ous psy­cho­lo­gic­al bur­den for the child, the fol­low­ing rules ap­ply:

a.

A con­front­a­tion hear­ing with the ac­cused may be ordered only if the child ex­pressly re­quests the con­front­a­tion hear­ing or the ac­cused's right to be heard can­not be guar­an­teed in any oth­er way.

b.

The child may not nor­mally be in­ter­viewed more than twice dur­ing the en­tire pro­ceed­ings.

c.

A second in­ter­view shall take place only if parties were un­able to ex­er­cise their rights at the first in­ter­view or the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing is es­sen­tial in the in­terests of the en­quir­ies or of the child. If pos­sible, the child should be ques­tioned by the same per­son who con­duc­ted the first in­ter­view.

d.

Ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ings shall be con­duc­ted in the pres­ence of a spe­cial­ist by an in­vest­ig­at­ing of­ficer spe­cific­ally trained for this pur­pose. Un­less a con­front­a­tion hear­ing is held, au­dio and video re­cord­ings shall be made of the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing.

e.

The parties shall ex­er­cise their rights through the per­son ask­ing the ques­tions.

f.

The per­son ask­ing the ques­tions and the spe­cial­ist shall re­cord their spe­cial ob­ser­va­tions in a re­port.

¹ Ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ings with per­sons with men­tal dis­orders shall be lim­ited to es­sen­tial mat­ters; ad­di­tion­al ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ings shall be avoided.

² The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may ar­range for spe­cial­ist crim­in­al or so­cial ser­vices au­thor­it­ies to con­duct the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing or re­quest that fam­ily mem­bers, oth­er con­fid­ants or ex­pert wit­nesses at­tend the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing.

The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons may take meas­ures to pro­tect per­sons out­side the pro­ceed­ings.

¹ The crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies may ques­tion the ac­cused at any stage of the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings in re­la­tion to the of­fences of which he or she is ac­cused.

² In do­ing so, they shall give the ac­cused the op­por­tun­ity to make a com­pre­hens­ive state­ment in re­la­tion to these of­fences.

¹ At the start of the first in­ter­view, the po­lice or pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall ad­vise the ac­cused in a lan­guage that he or she un­der­stands:

a.

that pre­lim­in­ary pro­ceed­ings have been com­menced against him or her, and of the of­fences that are the sub­ject of the pro­ceed­ings;

b.

that he or she is en­titled to re­main si­lent and may re­fuse to co­oper­ate in the pro­ceed­ings;

c.

that he or she is en­titled to ap­point a de­fence law­yer or if ap­pro­pri­ate to re­quest the as­sist­ance of a duty de­fence law­yer;

d.

that he or she may re­quest the as­sist­ance of an in­ter­pret­er.

² Evid­ence ob­tained at an ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing con­duc­ted without the fore­go­ing cau­tion is in­ad­miss­ible.

¹ In the case of po­lice ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ings, the ac­cused has the right for his or her de­fence law­yer to be present and al­lowed to ask ques­tions.

² In the case of po­lice ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ings of a per­son who has been ar­res­ted, the per­son also is en­titled to com­mu­nic­ate freely with his or her de­fence law­yer.

³ The ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing may not be post­poned to al­low time for the fore­go­ing rights to be ex­er­cised.

If the ac­cused has ad­mit­ted com­mit­ting the of­fence, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor and court shall as­sess the cred­ib­il­ity of the ad­mis­sion and re­quest the ac­cused to provide more pre­cise de­tails of the cir­cum­stances of the of­fence.

The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall ques­tion the ac­cused with re­gard to his or her per­son­al cir­cum­stances only if it is ex­pec­ted that the ac­cused will be charged or is­sued with a sum­mary pen­alty or­der or if it is es­sen­tial for oth­er reas­ons.