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Chapter 3 Witnesses

Section 1 General Provisions

Art. 162 Definition  

A wit­ness is a per­son not in­volved in com­mit­ting an of­fence who can make a state­ment that may as­sist in the in­vest­ig­a­tion of an of­fence and who is not a per­son provid­ing in­form­a­tion.

Art. 163 Capacity and duty to testify  

1A per­son has the ca­pa­city to testi­fy if he or she is over the age of 15 and has the re­quired men­tal ca­pa­city with re­gard to the sub­ject mat­ter of the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing.

2Every per­son with the ca­pa­city to testi­fy is ob­liged to make a state­ment and to tell the truth, sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions on rights to re­fuse to testi­fy.

Art. 164 Enquiries relating to witnesses  

1En­quir­ies may be made in­to the pre­vi­ous con­duct and the per­son­al cir­cum­stances of a wit­ness only if this is rel­ev­ant to an as­sess­ment of his or her cred­ib­il­ity.

2If there are doubts as to the men­tal ca­pa­city of a wit­ness or if there are in­dic­a­tions of a men­tal dis­order, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may or­der an out­pa­tient ex­am­in­a­tion of the wit­ness if this is jus­ti­fied by the im­port­ance of the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings and of the wit­nesses testi­mony.

Art. 165 Witness's duty of confidentiality  

1The au­thor­ity con­duct­ing the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing may re­quire a wit­ness sub­ject to ad­vising him or her of the pen­al­ties un­der Art­icle 292 SCC1 to treat the planned or com­pleted in­ter­view and its sub­ject mat­ter as con­fid­en­tial.

2This ob­lig­a­tion shall be made sub­ject to a time lim­it.

3The or­der may be com­bined with the wit­ness's sum­mons.


1 SR 311.0

Art. 166 Interview with the person suffering harm  

1The per­son suf­fer­ing harm shall be in­ter­viewed as a wit­ness.

2The right to in­ter­view the per­son suf­fer­ing harm as a per­son provid­ing in­form­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 178 is re­served.

Art. 167 Compensation  

A wit­ness is en­titled to ap­pro­pri­ate com­pens­a­tion for loss of in­come and ex­penses.

Section 2 Rights to Refuse to Testify

Art. 168 Right to refuse to testify due to a personal relationship  

1The fol­low­ing per­sons may re­fuse to testi­fy:

a.
the ac­cused's spouse or the per­son who co­hab­its with the ac­cused;
b.
any­one who has a child with the ac­cused;
c.
any­one who is re­lated to the ac­cused in dir­ect line or by mar­riage;
d.
the ac­cused's sib­lings and stepsib­lings and the spouse of a sib­ling or stepsib­ling;
e.
the sib­lings and stepsib­lings of the ac­cused's spouse, and the spouse of such a sib­ling or stepsib­ling;
f.
the ac­cused's foster par­ents, foster chil­dren and foster sib­lings;
g.1
a per­son ap­poin­ted to act as guard­i­an or deputy for the ac­cused.

2The right to re­fuse to testi­fy un­der para­graph 1 let­ters a and f re­mains val­id if the mar­riage is dis­solved or if in the case of a foster fam­ily2, the foster re­la­tion­ship no longer ap­plies.

3A re­gistered part­ner­ship is deemed equi­val­ent to mar­riage.

4The right to re­fuse to testi­fy ceases to ap­ply if:

a.3
the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings con­cern an of­fence un­der Art­icles 111–113, 122, 124, 140, 184, 185, 187, 189, 190 or 191 SCC4; and
b.
the crim­in­al act was dir­ec­ted at a per­son to whom the wit­ness in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 1–3 is re­lated.

1 Amended by An­nex No 2 of the FA of 15 Dec. 2017 (Child Pro­tec­tion), in force since 1 Jan. 2019 (AS 2018 2947; BBl 2015 3431).
2 Art. 4–11 of the Or­din­ance of 19 Oct. 1977 on the Place­ment of Chil­dren in Foster Care and for Ad­op­tion (SR 211.222.338).
3 Amended by No III of the FA of 30 Sept. 2011, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2012 (AS 2012 2575; BBl 2010 5651 5677).
4 SR 311.0

Art. 169 Right to refuse to testify for personal protection or to protect closely related persons  

1A per­son may the re­fuse to testi­fy if he or she would in­crim­in­ate him or her­self by testi­fy­ing such that he or she:

a.
could be found guilty of an of­fence;
b.
could be held li­able un­der the civil law and the in­terest in pro­tec­tion out­weighs the in­terest in pro­sec­u­tion.

2The right to re­fuse to testi­fy also ap­plies if the per­son by testi­fy­ing would in­crim­in­ate a closely re­lated per­son as defined in Art­icle 168 para­graphs 1–3; Art­icle 168 para­graph 4 re­mains re­served.

3A per­son may re­fuse to testi­fy if by testi­fy­ing he or she or a closely re­lated per­son as defined in Art­icle 168 para­graphs 1–3 would be ex­posed to a con­sid­er­able risk to life and limb or oth­er ser­i­ous det­ri­ment that can­not be pre­ven­ted by tak­ing pro­tect­ive meas­ures.

4A vic­tim of a sexu­al of­fence may in every case re­fuse to an­swer ques­tions that re­late to his or her private do­main.

Art. 170 Right to refuse to testify due to official secrecy  

1Pub­lic of­fi­cials as defined in Art­icle 110 para­graph 3 SCC1 as well as mem­bers of au­thor­it­ies may re­fuse to testi­fy on secret mat­ters com­mu­nic­ated to them in their of­fi­cial ca­pa­city or which have come to their know­ledge in the ex­er­cise of their of­fice.

2They must testi­fy if they have been giv­en writ­ten au­thor­isa­tion to do so by their su­per­i­or.

3The su­per­i­or shall grant au­thor­isa­tion to testi­fy if the in­terest in es­tab­lish­ing the truth out­weighs the in­terest in pre­serving secrecy.


1 SR 311.0

Art. 171 Right to refuse to testify due to professional confidentiality  

1Mem­bers of the clergy, law­yers, de­fence law­yers, not­ar­ies, pat­ent at­tor­neys, doc­tors, dent­ists, phar­macists, psy­cho­lo­gists and as­sist­ants to such per­sons may re­fuse to testi­fy in re­la­tion to con­fid­en­tial mat­ters that have been con­fided to them or come to their know­ledge in the course of their pro­fes­sion­al work.1

2They must testi­fy if they:

a.
are sub­ject to a duty to re­port; or
b.
are re­lieved of their duty of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity in terms of Art­icle 321 num­ber 2 SCC2 by the per­son to whom the con­fid­en­tial in­form­a­tion per­tains or through the writ­ten con­sent of the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity.

3The crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity shall also re­spect pro­fes­sion­al con­fid­en­ti­al­ity in cases where the per­son en­trus­ted with con­fid­en­tial in­form­a­tion is re­lieved of the duty of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity but he or she es­tab­lishes that the in­terest of the per­son to whom the con­fid­en­tial in­form­a­tion per­tains out­weighs the in­terest in es­tab­lish­ing the truth.

4The pro­vi­sions of the Law­yers Act of 23 June 20003 are re­served.


1 Amended by An­nex No 2 of the Health­care Oc­cu­pa­tions Act of 30 Sept. 2016, in force since 1 Feb. 2020 (AS 2020 57; BBl 2015 8715).
2 SR 311.0
3 SR 935.61

Art. 172 Protection of journalists' sources  

1Per­sons in­volved pro­fes­sion­ally in the pub­lic­a­tion of in­form­a­tion in the ed­it­or­i­al sec­tion of a me­di­um that ap­pears peri­od­ic­ally, to­geth­er with their aux­il­i­ary per­son­nel may re­fuse to testi­fy as to the iden­tity of the au­thor or as to the con­tent and sources of their in­form­a­tion.

2They must testi­fy if:

a.
the testi­mony is re­quired to save a per­son from im­me­di­ate danger to life and limb;
b.
without the testi­mony one of the fol­low­ing of­fences will not be solved or a per­son sus­pec­ted of com­mit­ting such an of­fence may not be ap­pre­hen­ded:
1.
hom­icide of­fences in terms of Art­icles 111–113 SCC1,
2.
felon­ies car­ry­ing a cus­todi­al sen­tence of at least 3 years,
3.2
of­fences in terms of Art­icles 187, 189, 190, 191, 197 para­graph 4, 260ter, 260quin­quies, 305bis, 305ter and 322ter–322sep­ties SCC,
4.3
of­fences in terms of Art­icle 19 num­ber 2 of the Nar­cot­ics Act of 3 Oc­to­ber 19514.

1 SR 311.0
2 Amended by An­nex No 2 of the Fed­er­al De­cree of 27 Sept. 2013 (Lan­zarote Con­ven­tion), in force since 1 Ju­ly 2014 (AS 2014 1159; BBl 2012 7571).
3 Cor­rec­tion by the Fed­er­al As­sembly Draft­ing Com­mit­tee dated 19 Sept. 2014, pub­lished on 4 Oct. 2014 (AS 2011 4487).
4 SR 812.121

Art. 173 Right to refuse to testify due to other duties of confidentiality  

1Any per­son who is re­quired to pre­serve pro­fes­sion­al con­fid­en­ti­al­ity in ac­cord­ance with any of the fol­low­ing pro­vi­sions must testi­fy only if the in­terest in es­tab­lish­ing the truth out­weighs the in­terest in pre­serving con­fid­en­ti­al­ity:

a.
Art­icle 321bis SCC1;
b.
Art­icle 139 para­graph 3 of the Civil Code2;
c.
Art­icle 2 of the Fed­er­al Act of 9 Oc­to­ber 19813 on Preg­nancy Ad­vis­ory Centres;
d.4
Art­icle 11 of the Vic­tim Sup­port Act of 23 March 20075;
e.6
Art­icle 15 para­graph 2 of the Nar­cot­ics Act of 3 Oc­to­ber 19517;
f.8
Art­icle 16 let­ter f of the Health­care Oc­cu­pa­tions Act of 30 Septem­ber 20169.

2Per­sons en­trus­ted with oth­er con­fid­en­tial in­form­a­tion pro­tec­ted by law are re­quired to testi­fy. The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may re­lieve them of the duty to testi­fy if they are able to es­tab­lish that the in­terest in pre­serving con­fid­en­ti­al­ity out­weighs the in­terest in es­tab­lish­ing the truth.


1 SR 311.0
2 SR 210. This Art. has now been re­pealed.
3 SR 857.5
4 Amended by An­nex No II 7 of the Crim­in­al Justice Au­thor­it­ies Act of 19 March 2010, in force since 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 3267; BBl 2008 8125).
5 SR 312.5
6 Cor­rec­tion by the Fed­er­al As­sembly Draft­ing Com­mit­tee dated 19 Sept. 2014, pub­lished on 4 Oct. 2014 (AS 2011 4487).
7 SR 812.121
8 In­ser­ted by An­nex No 2 of the Health­care Oc­cu­pa­tions Act of 30 Sept. 2016, in force since 1 Feb. 2020 (AS 2020 57; BBl 2015 8715).
9 SR 811.21

Art. 174 Decision on permitting a person to refuse to testify  

1The de­cision on wheth­er to al­low a per­son to re­fuse to testi­fy is made by:

a.
the au­thor­ity con­duct­ing the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing in the pre­lim­in­ary pro­ceed­ings;
b.
the court after charges have been brought.

2The wit­ness may re­quest a re­view by the ob­jec­tions au­thor­ity im­me­di­ately after re­ceiv­ing no­ti­fic­a­tion of the de­cision.

3Un­til the ob­jec­tions au­thor­ity makes its de­cision, the wit­ness is en­titled to re­fuse to testi­fy.

Art. 175 Exercise of the right to refuse to testify  

1The wit­ness may in­voke his or her right to re­fuse to testi­fy at any time or re­voke his or her waiver of that right.

2State­ments made by a wit­ness after be­ing cau­tioned with re­gard to the right to re­fuse to testi­fy may be ad­mit­ted as evid­ence if the wit­ness sub­sequently ex­er­cises the right to re­fuse to testi­fy or re­vokes a waiver of the right to re­fuse to testi­fy.

Art. 176 Unlawful refusal to testify  

1Any per­son who re­fuses to testi­fy without hav­ing the right to do so may be li­able to a fixed pen­alty fine and may be re­quired to pay the costs and dam­ages in­curred as a res­ult of such re­fus­al.

2If a per­son who is ob­liged to testi­fy in­sists on re­fus­ing to do so, he or she will again be re­ques­ted to testi­fy and cau­tioned as to the pen­al­ties un­der Art­icle 292 SCC1. In the event of con­tin­ued re­fus­al, crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings shall be com­menced.


1 SR 311.0

Section 3 Examination Hearings with Witnesses

Art. 177  

1The au­thor­ity con­duct­ing the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing shall cau­tion the wit­ness at the be­gin­ning of each hear­ing with re­gard to the ob­lig­a­tions to testi­fy and to tell the truth and ad­vise the wit­ness of the pen­al­ties for per­jury in terms of Art­icle 307 SCC1. If no cau­tion is giv­en, the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing is in­val­id.

2The au­thor­ity con­duct­ing the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing shall ques­tion each wit­ness at the be­gin­ning of the first hear­ing as to his or her re­la­tion­ship with the parties and as to oth­er cir­cum­stances that may be rel­ev­ant to the wit­ness's cred­ib­il­ity.

3It shall cau­tion the wit­ness as to the rights to re­fuse to testi­fy as soon as it be­comes ap­par­ent through ques­tion­ing or the files that such rights ap­ply. If no cau­tion is giv­en and the wit­ness sub­sequently ex­er­cises the right to re­fuse to testi­fy, the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing is in­ad­miss­ible.


1 SR 311.0

Chapter 4 Persons providing Information

Art. 178 Definition  

The fol­low­ing per­sons may be in­ter­viewed as per­sons provid­ing in­form­a­tion:

a.
a per­son who has giv­en no­tice that he or she is a private claimant;
b.
a per­son who is un­der the age of 15 at the time of the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing;
c.
a per­son who due to lim­ited men­tal ca­pa­city is not able to un­der­stand the sub­ject mat­ter of the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing;
d.
a per­son who is not an ac­cused but who can­not be ex­cluded as the per­pet­rat­or of or as a par­ti­cipant in the of­fence un­der in­vest­ig­a­tion or an­oth­er re­lated of­fence;
e.
a per­son who is a co-ac­cused who must be in­ter­viewed with re­gard to an of­fence of which he or she is not per­son­ally ac­cused;
f.
a per­son who is the ac­cused in oth­er pro­ceed­ings re­lat­ing to an of­fence con­nec­ted with the of­fence un­der in­vest­ig­a­tion;
g.
a per­son who has been or could be des­ig­nated as the rep­res­ent­at­ive of a cor­por­ate en­tity in crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings against that en­tity, as well as his or her em­ploy­ees.
Art. 179 Persons providing information at police examination hearings  

1The po­lice shall ques­tion any per­son who is not a sus­pect in the ca­pa­city of a per­son provid­ing in­form­a­tion.

2The fore­go­ing is sub­ject to the right to ques­tion a per­son as a wit­ness in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 142 para­graph 2.

Art. 180 Status  

1Per­sons provid­ing in­form­a­tion in terms of Art­icle 178 let­ters b–g have the right to re­main si­lent; they are sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions on ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ings with the ac­cused, mu­tatis mutandis.

2A private claimant (Art. 178 let. a) is ob­liged to testi­fy be­fore the pub­lic pro­sec­utor, be­fore the courts and be­fore the po­lice if they in­ter­view the claimant on be­half of the pub­lic pro­sec­utor. In ad­di­tion, the pro­vi­sions on wit­nesses ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis, with ex­cep­tion of Art­icle 176.

Art. 181 Examination hearing  

1The crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall cau­tion per­sons provid­ing in­form­a­tion at the be­gin­ning of the ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ing with re­gard to their ob­lig­a­tion to testi­fy or their right to re­main si­lent or right to re­fuse to testi­fy.

2They shall cau­tion per­sons provid­ing in­form­a­tion who are ob­liged to testi­fy or who de­clare that they are pre­pared to testi­fy with re­gard to the pos­sible pen­al­ties for false ac­cus­a­tion, of mis­lead­ing ju­di­cial au­thor­it­ies and of as­sist­ing of­fend­ers.

Chapter 5 Authorised Experts

Art. 182 Requirements for requesting the services of an expert witness  

The pub­lic pro­sec­utor and courts shall re­quest the ser­vices of one or more ex­pert wit­nesses if they do not have the spe­cial­ist know­ledge and skills re­quired to de­term­ine or as­sess the facts of the case.

Art. 183 Requirements for the expert witness  

1Any nat­ur­al per­son with the re­quired spe­cial­ist know­ledge and skills in the rel­ev­ant field may be ap­poin­ted as an ex­pert wit­ness.

2The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons may provide for the re­ten­tion of per­man­ent or of­fi­cial ex­pert wit­nesses for spe­cif­ic fields.

3Au­thor­ised ex­perts are sub­ject to the grounds for re­cus­al in terms of Art­icle 56.

Art. 184 Appointment and instructions  

1The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall ap­point the ex­pert wit­ness.

2The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall provide writ­ten in­struc­tions; these shall con­tain:

a.
the per­son­al de­tails of the ex­pert wit­ness;
b.
if ap­plic­able, no­tice that the ex­pert wit­ness may in­struct oth­ers to as­sist in pre­par­ing the re­port sub­ject to his or her su­per­vi­sion;
c.
the pre­cisely for­mu­lated ques­tions;
d.
the dead­line for com­plet­ing the re­port;
e.
ref­er­ence to the duty of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity that ap­plies to the ex­pert wit­ness and any as­sist­ants;
f.
a ref­er­ence to the pen­al­ties for per­jury by an ex­pert wit­ness in terms of Art­icle 307 SCC1.

3The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall give the parties pri­or op­por­tun­ity to com­ment on the ex­pert wit­ness and on the ques­tions and to sub­mit their own ap­plic­a­tions. The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may dis­pense with this re­quire­ment in re­la­tion to labor­at­ory tests, in par­tic­u­lar where they re­late to de­term­in­ing the blood-al­co­hol con­cen­tra­tion or the level of pur­ity of sub­stances, proof of the pres­ence of nar­cot­ics in the blood or the pre­par­a­tion of a DNA pro­file.

4To­geth­er with the in­struc­tions, they shall provide the ex­pert wit­ness with the doc­u­ments and items re­quired to pre­pare the re­port.

5They may re­voke their in­struc­tions at any time and ap­point new ex­pert wit­nesses if this is in the in­terests of the crim­in­al case.

6They may re­quest an es­tim­ate of the costs be­fore is­su­ing the in­struc­tions.

7If a private claimant re­quests an ex­pert re­port, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may make in­struct­ing an ex­pert wit­ness de­pend­ent on the private claimant mak­ing an ad­vance pay­ment to cov­er costs.


1 SR 311.0

Art. 185 Preparation of the report  

1The ex­pert wit­ness is per­son­ally re­spons­ible for the ex­pert re­port.

2The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may re­quest the ex­pert wit­ness to at­tend pro­ced­ur­al hear­ings and au­thor­ise the ex­pert to put ques­tions to the per­son be­ing ques­tioned.

3If the ex­pert wit­ness is of the view that doc­u­ments must be ad­ded to the case files, he or she shall make the rel­ev­ant ap­plic­a­tion to the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings.

4The ex­pert wit­ness may con­duct simple en­quir­ies that are closely con­nec­ted to his or her as­sign­ment and for this pur­pose may re­quest per­sons to co­oper­ate. These per­sons must com­ply with the in­struc­tions. If they re­fuse, they may be brought be­fore the ex­pert wit­ness by the po­lice.

5In re­la­tion to en­quir­ies by the ex­pert wit­ness, the ac­cused and, to the ex­tent of their right to re­fuse to testi­fy, per­sons who have the right to re­main si­lent or to re­fuse to testi­fy may re­fuse to co­oper­ate. The ex­pert wit­ness shall cau­tion the per­sons con­cerned with re­gard to such rights at the start of his or her en­quir­ies.

Art. 186 In-patient assessment  

1The pub­lic pro­sec­utor or courts may have an ac­cused ad­mit­ted to hos­pit­al if this is re­quired in or­der to pre­pare a med­ic­al re­port.

2The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall ap­ply to the com­puls­ory meas­ures court for the ac­cused to be ad­mit­ted to hos­pit­al un­less the ac­cused is already on re­mand. The com­puls­ory meas­ures court shall is­sue a fi­nal judg­ment on the mat­ter in writ­ten pro­ceed­ings.

3If an in-pa­tient as­sess­ment proves ne­ces­sary dur­ing the court pro­ceed­ings, the court con­cerned shall is­sue a fi­nal de­cision on the mat­ter in writ­ten pro­ceed­ings.

4The time spent in hos­pit­al shall be taken in­to ac­count in the sen­tence.

5In ad­di­tion, the in-pa­tient as­sess­ment is gov­erned by mu­tatis mutandis by the reg­u­la­tions on re­mand and pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion.

Art. 187 Form of the expert report  

1The ex­pert wit­ness shall pre­pare an ex­pert re­port in writ­ing. If ad­di­tion­al per­sons are in­volved in the pre­par­a­tion of the re­port, their names and the con­tri­bu­tion that they made to the pre­par­a­tion of the re­port must be spe­cified.

2The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may or­der the ex­pert re­port to be giv­en or­ally or that a writ­ten re­port be ex­plained or ad­ded to or­ally; in such an event, the reg­u­la­tions on wit­ness ex­am­in­a­tion hear­ings ap­ply.

Art. 188 Right of the parties to comment  

The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall no­ti­fy the parties of the con­tent of the writ­ten ex­pert re­port and al­low them time in which to com­ment there­on.

Art. 189 Additions and improvements to the report  

The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall ex of­fi­cio or at the re­quest of a party ar­range for the ex­pert re­port to be ad­ded to or im­proved by the same ex­pert wit­ness or shall ap­point ad­di­tion­al ex­pert wit­nesses if:

a.
the ex­pert re­port is in­com­plete or un­clear;
b.
two or more ex­pert wit­nesses di­verge con­sid­er­ably in their con­clu­sions; or
c.
there are doubts as to the ac­cur­acy of the ex­pert re­port.
Art. 190 Fees  

The ex­pert wit­ness is en­titled to an ap­pro­pri­ate fee.

Art. 191 Neglect of duty  

If an ex­pert wit­ness fails to ful­fil his ob­lig­a­tions or does not do so in time, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may:

a.
im­pose a fixed pen­alty fine;
b.
re­voke their in­struc­tions without pay­ing the ex­pert a fee for any work car­ried out.

Chapter 6 Material Evidence

Art. 192 Items of evidence  

1The crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall add all items of evid­ence in their ori­gin­al form to the case file.

2Cop­ies shall be made of of­fi­cial doc­u­ments and oth­er re­cords if this is suf­fi­cient for the pur­poses of the pro­ceed­ings. If ne­ces­sary, the cop­ies must be cer­ti­fied.

3The parties may in­spect items of evid­ence in ac­cord­ance with the reg­u­la­tions on the in­spec­tion of files.

Art. 193 Inspection  

1The pub­lic pro­sec­utor, the courts and, in minor cases, the po­lice shall make an on-site in­spec­tion of all items, loc­a­tions and pro­cesses that are im­port­ant in as­sess­ing the cir­cum­stances but which are not im­me­di­ately avail­able as items of evid­ence.

2Every per­son con­cerned must tol­er­ate the in­spec­tion and al­low the par­ti­cipants the re­quired ac­cess.

3If it is ne­ces­sary to enter houses, dwell­ings or oth­er premises that are not gen­er­ally ac­cess­ible, the au­thor­it­ies shall com­ply with the reg­u­la­tions ap­plic­able to the search of premises.

4A re­cord shall be made of in­spec­tions by means of video or au­dio re­cord­ings, plans, draw­ings or de­scrip­tions, or by some oth­er meth­od.

5The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may or­der that:

a.
oth­er pro­ced­ur­al acts be re­lo­cated to the place where the in­spec­tion is be­ing car­ried out;
b.
the in­spec­tion is com­bined with a re­con­struc­tion of the crim­in­al act or with a con­front­a­tion hear­ing; in such an event, the ac­cused, the wit­nesses and the per­sons provid­ing in­form­a­tion are ob­liged to take part, sub­ject to their right to re­main si­lent.
Art. 194 Consultation of case files  

1The pub­lic pro­sec­utor and the courts shall con­sult files re­lat­ing to oth­er pro­ceed­ings if this is re­quired to prove the cir­cum­stances of the case or to as­sess the guilt of the ac­cused.

2Ad­min­is­trat­ive and ju­di­cial au­thor­it­ies shall make their files avail­able for in­spec­tion un­less there is an over­rid­ing pub­lic or private in­terest in pre­serving con­fid­en­ti­al­ity.

3Con­flicts between au­thor­it­ies of the same can­ton shall be de­cided by the ob­jec­tions au­thor­ity of the can­ton con­cerned, and con­flicts between au­thor­it­ies of dif­fer­ent can­tons or between can­ton­al and fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies shall be de­cided by the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court.

Art. 195 Obtaining reports and information  

1The crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall ob­tain of­fi­cial re­ports and med­ic­al cer­ti­fic­ates re­lat­ing to mat­ters that may be of sig­ni­fic­ance in the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings.

2In or­der to es­tab­lish the per­son­al cir­cum­stances of the ac­cused, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor and courts in­form­a­tion shall ob­tain in­form­a­tion on the ac­cused's crim­in­al re­cord and repu­ta­tion and oth­er rel­ev­ant re­ports from pub­lic of­fices and mem­bers of the pub­lic.

Title 5 Compulsory Measures

Chapter 1 General Provisions

Art. 196 Definition  

Com­puls­ory meas­ures are pro­ced­ur­al acts car­ried out by the crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies that re­strict the fun­da­ment­al rights of the per­sons con­cerned and which serve:

a.
to se­cure evid­ence;
b.
to en­sure that per­sons at­tend the pro­ceed­ings;
c.
to guar­an­tee the ex­e­cu­tion of the fi­nal judg­ment.
Art. 197 Principles  

1Com­puls­ory meas­ures may be taken only if:

a.
they are per­mit­ted by law;
b.
there is reas­on­able sus­pi­cion that an of­fence has been com­mit­ted;
c.
the aims can­not be achieved by less strin­gent meas­ures
d.
the ser­i­ous­ness of the of­fence jus­ti­fies the com­puls­ory meas­ure.

2Par­tic­u­lar cau­tion must be taken when car­ry­ing out com­puls­ory meas­ures that re­strict the fun­da­ment­al rights of per­sons not ac­cused of an of­fence.

Art. 198 Competence  

1Com­puls­ory meas­ures may be ordered by:

a.
the pub­lic pro­sec­utor;
b.
the courts, or in cases of ur­gency, their dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings;
c.
the po­lice in cases spe­cific­ally provided for by law.

2The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons may re­strict the powers of the po­lice to or­der or carry out com­puls­ory meas­ures to po­lice of­ficers of a spe­cif­ic rank or func­tion.

Art. 199 Notice of the order  

Where a com­puls­ory meas­ure must be ordered in writ­ing and need not be kept secret, the per­sons dir­ectly con­cerned shall be giv­en a copy of the war­rant and of any re­cord re­lat­ing to its ex­e­cu­tion against con­firm­a­tion of re­ceipt.

Art. 200 Use of force  

Force may be used as a last re­sort when car­ry­ing out com­puls­ory meas­ures; any force used must be reas­on­able.

Chapter 2 Summonses, Enforced Appearances and Tracing of Wanted Persons or Property

Section 1 Summonses

Art. 201 Form and content  

1A sum­mons shall be is­sued in writ­ing by the pub­lic pro­sec­utor, the au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for pro­sec­ut­ing con­tra­ven­tions and the courts.

2It con­tains:

a.
the name of the crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity is­su­ing the sum­mons and the per­sons who will carry out the pro­ced­ur­al act;
b.
the name of the per­son summoned and the ca­pa­city in which it is in­ten­ded that per­son should par­ti­cip­ate in the pro­ced­ur­al act;
c.
the reas­on for the sum­mons if the aim of the in­vest­ig­a­tion per­mits such in­form­a­tion to be dis­closed;
d.
the place, date and time of ap­pear­ance;
e.
no­tice of the re­quire­ment to ap­pear per­son­ally;
f.
a cau­tion as to the leg­al con­sequences of the fail­ure to ap­pear without ex­cuse;
g.
the date on which the sum­mons was is­sued;
h.
the sig­na­ture of the per­son is­su­ing the sum­mons.
Art. 202 Time limit  

1Sum­monses shall be served:

a.
in the pre­lim­in­ary pro­ceed­ings: at least 3 days be­fore the pro­ced­ur­al act is due to take place;
b.
in pro­ceed­ings in court: at least 10 days be­fore the pro­ced­ur­al act is due to take place.

2Pub­lic sum­monses shall be pub­lished at least one month be­fore the pro­ced­ur­al act is due to take place.

3When de­cid­ing on the date of the pro­ced­ur­al act, ap­pro­pri­ate ac­count shall be taken of the avail­ab­il­ity of the per­sons be­ing summoned.

Art. 203 Exceptions  

1A sum­mons may be is­sued in a form oth­er than that pre­scribed and sub­ject to short­er time lim­its:

a.
in cases of ur­gency; or
b.
with the con­sent the per­son be­ing summoned.

2Any per­son who is present at the place of the pro­ced­ur­al act or in de­ten­tion may be ques­tioned im­me­di­ately and without the is­sue of a sum­mons.

Art. 204 Safe conduct  

1If per­sons who are abroad must be summoned, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor or the per­sons con­duct­ing the court pro­ceed­ings may guar­an­tee their safe con­duct.

2Per­sons who have been guar­an­teed safe con­duct may not be ar­res­ted or made sub­ject to oth­er meas­ures re­strict­ing their liberty in Switzer­land due to acts or con­vic­tions from the peri­od pri­or to their de­par­ture.

3Safe con­duct may be sub­ject to con­di­tions. In this case, the per­sons con­cerned must be in­formed that the right to safe con­duct ex­pires if they fail to com­ply with the con­di­tions there­of.

Art. 205 Duty to appear, circumstances preventing appearance and failure to appear  

1Any per­son summoned by a crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity must com­ply with the sum­mons.

2Any per­son who is pre­ven­ted from com­ply­ing with a sum­mons must in­form the au­thor­ity is­su­ing the sum­mons im­me­di­ately; he or she must give reas­ons for his or her in­ab­il­ity to ap­pear and if pos­sible provide doc­u­ment­ary evid­ence there­of.

3A sum­mons may be re­voked if there is good cause. The re­voc­a­tion of the sum­mons takes ef­fect when the per­son summoned has been in­formed there­of.

4Any per­son who, without an ac­cept­able reas­on, fails to com­ply with a sum­mons from a pub­lic pro­sec­utor, au­thor­ity re­spons­ible for pro­sec­ut­ing con­tra­ven­tions or a court or who ap­pears late shall be li­able to a fixed pen­alty fine and may also be brought be­fore the au­thor­ity con­cerned by the po­lice.

5The fore­go­ing para­graph does not ap­ply to the pro­vi­sions on pro­ceed­ings in ab­sen­tia.

Art. 206 Police summonses  

1In the course of po­lice en­quir­ies, the po­lice may sum­mon per­sons for the pur­poses of ques­tion­ing, es­tab­lish­ing their iden­tity or for oth­er iden­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ures without the re­quire­ment to com­ply with spe­cial form­al­it­ies or time lim­its.

2Any per­son who fails to com­ply with a po­lice sum­mons may be brought be­fore the au­thor­ity con­cerned on the basis of a war­rant is­sued by the pub­lic pro­sec­utor provided the per­son summoned has been is­sued with a writ­ten warn­ing that this meas­ure may be taken.

Section 2 Appearance enforced by the Police

Art. 207 Requirements and competence  

1A per­son may be brought be­fore an au­thor­ity by the po­lice if:

a.
he or she has failed to com­ply with a sum­mons;
b.
there are spe­cif­ic in­dic­a­tions that he or she will not com­ply with a sum­mons;
c.
in pro­ceed­ings re­lat­ing to a felony or mis­de­mean­our, his or her im­me­di­ate ap­pear­ance is es­sen­tial in the in­terests of the pro­ced­ure;
d.
there is a strong sus­pi­cion that he or she has com­mit­ted a felony or mis­de­mean­our and there is reas­on to be­lieve that there are grounds for the per­son's de­ten­tion.

2An en­forced ap­pear­ance shall be ordered by the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings.

Art. 208 Form of the order  

1An en­forced ap­pear­ance is ordered in the form of a writ­ten war­rant. In cases of ur­gency, it may be ordered or­ally; it must however be con­firmed sub­sequently in writ­ing.

2The war­rant shall con­tain the same de­tails as a sum­mons and also the ex­press au­thor­isa­tion for the po­lice to use force and to enter build­ings, dwell­ings and oth­er spaces not gen­er­ally ac­cess­ible if this is ne­ces­sary in or­der to im­ple­ment the war­rant.

Art. 209 Procedure  

1The po­lice shall make every ef­fort to pro­tect the per­sons con­cerned when ex­ecut­ing a war­rant for an en­forced ap­pear­ance.

2They shall show the per­son con­cerned the war­rant for the en­forced ap­pear­ance and bring him or her be­fore the rel­ev­ant au­thor­ity im­me­di­ately or at the time spe­cified for the ap­pear­ance.

3The au­thor­ity shall in­form the per­son con­cerned im­me­di­ately and in a lan­guage they can un­der­stand of the reas­on for the en­forced ap­pear­ance, carry out the pro­ced­ur­al act and re­lease the per­son im­me­di­ately there­after un­less the au­thor­ity is ap­ply­ing for his or her re­mand or pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion.

Section 3 Tracing of Wanted Persons or Property

Art. 210 Principles  

1The pub­lic pro­sec­utor, au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for pro­sec­ut­ing con­tra­ven­tions and courts may or­der the tra­cing of per­sons whose where­abouts are un­known and who are re­quired to ap­pear in the pro­ceed­ings. In cases of ur­gency, the po­lice may them­selves or­der that a wanted per­son be traced.

2A war­rant may be is­sued for an ac­cused per­son to be ar­res­ted and brought be­fore the au­thor­it­ies if there is a strong sus­pi­cion that he or she has com­mit­ted a felony or mis­de­mean­our and there is reas­on to be­lieve that there are grounds for the per­son's de­ten­tion.

3Un­less the pub­lic pro­sec­utor, the au­thor­ity re­spons­ible for pro­sec­ut­ing con­tra­ven­tions or the court or­ders oth­er­wise, the po­lice are re­spons­ible for tra­cing wanted per­sons.

4Para­graphs 1 and 3 ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis to the tra­cing of prop­erty.

Art. 211 Assistance from the public  

1The pub­lic may be re­ques­ted to as­sist in tra­cing wanted per­sons or prop­erty.

2The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons may is­sue pro­vi­sions in ac­cord­ance with which mem­bers of the pub­lic may be re­war­ded for as­sist­ing in the suc­cess­ful tra­cing of wanted per­sons or prop­erty.

Chapter 3 Deprivation of Liberty, Remand and Preventive Detention

Section 1 General Provisions

Art. 212 Principles  

1An ac­cused per­son shall re­main at liberty. He or she may be sub­jec­ted to com­puls­ory meas­ures in­volving depriva­tion of liberty only in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions of this Code.

2Com­puls­ory meas­ures in­volving depriva­tion of liberty must be re­voked as soon as:

a.
their re­quire­ments are no longer ful­filled;
b.
the term of the meas­ure spe­cified by this Code or by a court has ex­pired; or
c.
al­tern­at­ive meas­ures achieve the same pur­pose.

3Re­mand and pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion may not be of longer dur­a­tion than the an­ti­cip­ated cus­todi­al sen­tence.

Art. 213 Access to premises  

1If it is ne­ces­sary to enter houses, dwell­ings or oth­er rooms that are not gen­er­ally ac­cess­ible in or­der to stop or ar­rest a per­son, the pro­vi­sions on search­ing premises must be com­plied with.

2If there is a risk in any delay, the po­lice may enter premises without a search war­rant.

Art. 214 Notification  

1If a per­son is ar­res­ted, or placed on re­mand or in pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion, the rel­ev­ant crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity shall im­me­di­ately no­ti­fy:

a.
his or her next-of-kin;
b.
if so re­ques­ted, his or her em­ploy­er or the rel­ev­ant em­bassy or con­su­late.

2No no­ti­fic­a­tion shall be giv­en if this is pre­cluded by the pur­pose of the in­vest­ig­a­tion or the per­son con­cerned ex­pressly so re­quests.

3Where an ar­res­ted per­son is sub­ject to a com­puls­ory meas­ure in­volving the depriva­tion of his or her liberty and a de­pend­ant suf­fers dif­fi­culties as a res­ult, the crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity shall no­ti­fy the rel­ev­ant so­cial ser­vices au­thor­it­ies.

4The vic­tim shall be in­formed of the ac­cused be­ing placed in or re­leased from re­mand or pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion, the or­der­ing of an al­tern­at­ive meas­ure un­der Art­icle 237 para­graph 2 let­ter c or g, or if the ac­cused ab­sconds, un­less he or she has ex­pressly re­ques­ted not to be in­formed.1 Such in­form­a­tion may not be provided if it would ex­pose the ac­cused to a ser­i­ous danger.


1 Amended by An­nex No 1 of the FA of 13 Dec. 2013 on Activ­ity Pro­hib­i­tion Or­ders and Con­tact Pro­hib­i­tion and Ex­clu­sion Or­ders, in force since 1 Jan. 2015 (AS 2014 2055; BBl 2012 8819).

Section 2 Police Powers to Stop and of Pursuit

Art. 215 Police power to stop  

1For the pur­pose of in­vest­ig­at­ing an of­fence, the po­lice may stop a per­son and if ne­ces­sary bring that per­son to the po­lice sta­tion in or­der to:

a.
es­tab­lish the per­son's iden­tity;
b.
ques­tion the per­son briefly;
c.
es­tab­lish wheth­er he or she has com­mit­ted an of­fence;
d.
es­tab­lish wheth­er the per­son or prop­erty in his or her pos­ses­sion is be­ing traced.

2They may re­quire the per­son they have stopped to:

a.
provide their per­son­al de­tails;
b.
pro­duce iden­tity doc­u­ments;
c.
pro­duce prop­erty in his or her pos­ses­sion;
d.
open con­tain­ers or vehicles.

3They may re­quest mem­bers of the pub­lic to as­sist them to stop per­sons.

4If there are spe­cif­ic in­dic­a­tions that an of­fence is be­ing com­mit­ted or per­sons sus­pec­ted of an of­fence are loc­ated at a spe­cif­ic place, the po­lice may cor­don off the loc­a­tion and stop the per­son loc­ated there.

Art. 216 Pursuit  

1The po­lice are en­titled in cases of ur­gency to pur­sue and stop a sus­pect on the ter­rit­ory of an­oth­er com­mune, an­oth­er can­ton and, if in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments so per­mit, an­oth­er coun­try.

2If the per­son stopped is then ar­res­ted, he or she shall be handed over im­me­di­ately to the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity at the place where he or she was stopped.

Section 3 Arrest

Art. 217 By the police  

1The po­lice are ob­liged to ar­rest a per­son and bring that per­son to the po­lice sta­tion if:

a.
they have caught the per­son in the act of com­mit­ting a felony or mis­de­mean­our or they have en­countered him or her im­me­di­ately after com­mit­ting such an of­fence;
b.
the per­son is sub­ject to an ar­rest war­rant.

2They may ar­rest a per­son and bring him or her to the po­lice sta­tion if, based on en­quir­ies or oth­er re­li­able in­form­a­tion, the per­son is sus­pec­ted of com­mit­ting a felony or mis­de­mean­our.

3They may ar­rest a per­son and bring him or her to the po­lice sta­tion if they have caught the per­son in the act of com­mit­ting a con­tra­ven­tion or they have en­countered him or her im­me­di­ately after com­mit­ting such an of­fence in the event that:

a.
the per­son re­fuses to provide his or her per­son­al de­tails;
b.
the per­son does not live in Switzer­land and fails to provide se­cur­ity for pay­ment of the an­ti­cip­ated fine im­me­di­ately;
c.
the ar­rest is ne­ces­sary in or­der to pre­vent the per­son from com­mit­ting fur­ther con­tra­ven­tions.
Art. 218 By private individuals  

1Where there is in­suf­fi­cient time to ob­tain po­lice as­sist­ance, mem­bers of the pub­lic have the right to ar­rest a per­son if:

a.
they have caught the per­son in the act of com­mit­ting a felony or mis­de­mean­our or they have en­countered him or her im­me­di­ately after com­mit­ting such an of­fence; or
b.
the pub­lic have been re­ques­ted to as­sist in tra­cing of the per­son con­cerned.

2When mak­ing an ar­rest, private in­di­vidu­als may only use force in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 200.

3Ar­res­ted per­sons must be handed over to the po­lice as quickly as pos­sible.

Art. 219 Police procedure  

1The po­lice shall es­tab­lish the iden­tity of the ar­res­ted per­son im­me­di­ately after the ar­rest, in­form him or her of the reas­on for the ar­rest in a lan­guage the per­son can un­der­stand and cau­tion the per­son as to his or her rights with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 158. There­after, they shall in­form the pub­lic pro­sec­utor im­me­di­ately of the ar­rest.

2They shall then ques­tion the ar­res­ted per­son in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 159 on the sus­pec­ted of­fences and carry out ap­pro­pri­ate in­vest­ig­a­tions im­me­di­ately in or­der to sub­stan­ti­ate or re­but the al­leg­a­tions and any oth­er grounds for de­ten­tion.

3If in­vest­ig­a­tions re­veal that there are no grounds for de­ten­tion or such reas­ons no longer ap­ply, they shall re­lease the ar­res­ted per­son im­me­di­ately. If the in­vest­ig­a­tions con­firm the sus­pi­cions and any grounds for de­ten­tion, they shall hand the per­son over to the pub­lic pro­sec­utor im­me­di­ately.

4Re­lease or han­dover shall in any case take place at the latest with­in 24 hours; if the per­son was stopped be­fore the ar­rest, then the peri­od while stopped shall be taken in­to ac­count when cal­cu­lat­ing the time lim­it.

5If the po­lice have pro­vi­sion­ally ar­res­ted a per­son in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 217 para­graph 3, the per­son may only be held for more than 3 hours if a cor­res­pond­ing or­der is giv­en by a po­lice of­ficer au­thor­ised to do so by the Con­fed­er­a­tion or the can­ton.

Section 4 Remand and Preventive Detention: General Provisions

Art. 220 Definitions  

1Re­mand be­gins when it is ordered by the com­puls­ory meas­ures court and ends with the re­ceipt by the court of first in­stance of the in­dict­ment, the ac­cel­er­ated com­mence­ment of a cus­todi­al sanc­tion or with the ac­cused's re­lease dur­ing the in­vest­ig­a­tion.

2Pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion is the peri­od of de­ten­tion between the time of re­ceipt by the court of first in­stance of the in­dict­ment and the is­sue of a fi­nal judg­ment, the com­mence­ment of a cus­todi­al sanc­tion, the en­force­ment of an ex­pul­sion or­der, or the ac­cused's re­lease.1


1 Amended by An­nex No 5 of the FA of 20 March 2015 (Im­ple­ment­a­tion of Art. 121 para. 3–6 Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion on the ex­pul­sion of for­eign na­tion­als con­victed of cer­tain crim­in­al of­fences), in force since 1 Oct. 2016 (AS 2016 2329; BBl 2013 5975).

Art. 221 Requirements  

1Re­mand and pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion are only per­mit­ted if there is a strong sus­pi­cion that the ac­cused has com­mit­ted a felony or mis­de­mean­our and there is a ser­i­ous con­cern that the ac­cused:

a.
will evade crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings or the an­ti­cip­ated sanc­tion by ab­scond­ing;
b.
will in­flu­ence people or tamper with evid­ence in or­der to com­prom­ise ef­forts to es­tab­lish the truth; or
c.
will pose a con­sid­er­able risk to the safety of oth­ers by com­mit­ting ser­i­ous felon­ies or mis­de­mean­ours as he or she has already com­mit­ted sim­il­ar of­fences.

2De­ten­tion is also per­mit­ted if there is ser­i­ous con­cern that a per­son will carry out a threat to com­mit a ser­i­ous felony.

Art. 222 Appellate remedies  

A de­tain­ee may con­test de­cisions or­der­ing, ex­tend­ing or end­ing his or her re­mand or pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion be­fore the ob­jec­tions au­thor­ity, sub­ject to Art­icle 233.


1 Amended by An­nex No II 7 of the Crim­in­al Justice Au­thor­it­ies Act of 19 March 2010, in force since 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 3267; BBl 2008 8125).

Art. 223 Communications with the defence in detention proceedings  

1The de­fence agent may be present in de­ten­tion pro­ceed­ings when the ac­cused is in­ter­viewed or when oth­er evid­ence is be­ing gathered.

2The ac­cused may at any time com­mu­nic­ate privately with his or her de­fence agent in writ­ing or or­ally in pro­ceed­ings be­fore the pub­lic pro­sec­utor or the courts re­lat­ing to de­ten­tion.

Section 5 Remand

Art. 224 Remand proceedings before the public prosecutor  

1The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall ques­tion the ac­cused im­me­di­ately and give the ac­cused the op­por­tun­ity to make a state­ment re­gard­ing the sus­pec­ted of­fence and the grounds for re­mand. It shall im­me­di­ately re­cord all evid­ence that may sub­stan­ti­ate or re­but the sus­pi­cions and the grounds for de­ten­tion provided such evid­ence is read­ily avail­able.

2If the sus­pi­cions and the grounds for re­mand are con­firmed, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall im­me­di­ately ap­ply to the com­puls­ory meas­ures court, but at the latest with­in 48 hours of the ar­rest, for the ac­cused to be re­manded or for an al­tern­at­ive meas­ure. It shall file its ap­plic­a­tion in writ­ing, with a brief state­ment of reas­ons and the most rel­ev­ant files.

3If the pub­lic pro­sec­utor de­cides against ap­ply­ing for re­mand, it shall or­der the ac­cused's im­me­di­ate re­lease. If it ap­plies for an al­tern­at­ive meas­ure, it shall take the re­quired pre­vent­ive meas­ures.

Art. 225 Detention proceedings before the compulsory measures court  

1On re­ceipt of the ap­plic­a­tion from the pub­lic pro­sec­utor, the com­puls­ory meas­ures court shall im­me­di­ately ar­range a private hear­ing with the pub­lic pro­sec­utor, the ac­cused and his or her de­fence agent; it may re­quire the pub­lic pro­sec­utor to par­ti­cip­ate.

2If so re­ques­ted, it shall per­mit the ac­cused and the de­fence to in­spect the files in its pos­ses­sion be­fore the hear­ing.

3Any per­son who is per­mit­ted not to at­tend the hear­ing may sub­mit ap­plic­a­tions in writ­ing or make ref­er­ence to earli­er sub­mis­sions.

4The com­puls­ory meas­ures court shall gath­er all the im­me­di­ately avail­able evid­ence that may sub­stan­ti­ate or re­but the sus­pi­cions or the grounds for de­ten­tion.

5If the ac­cused ex­pressly waives the right to a hear­ing, the com­puls­ory meas­ures court shall de­cide in writ­ten pro­ceed­ings on the basis of the ap­plic­a­tion made by the pub­lic pro­sec­utor and the sub­mis­sions made by the ac­cused.

Art. 226 Decision of the compulsory measures court  

1The com­puls­ory meas­ures court de­cides im­me­di­ately, but at the latest with­in 48 hours of re­ceipt of the ap­plic­a­tion.

2It shall give im­me­di­ate no­tice of its de­cision to the pub­lic pro­sec­utor, the ac­cused and his or her de­fence law­yer or­ally, or, if they are ab­sent, in writ­ing. It shall then provide them with a brief writ­ten state­ment of the grounds.

3If it or­ders the ac­cused to be re­manded, it shall in­form the ac­cused that he or she may file an ap­plic­a­tion for re­lease from re­mand at any time.

4In its de­cision it may:

a.
stip­u­late a max­im­um term for re­mand;
b.
in­struct the pub­lic pro­sec­utor to carry out spe­cif­ic in­vest­ig­at­ive activ­it­ies;
c.
or­der al­tern­at­ive meas­ures to re­mand.

5If it de­cides not to or­der the ac­cused to be re­manded, the ac­cused shall be re­leased im­me­di­ately.

Art. 227 Application to extend the period of remand  

1If the peri­od on re­mand ordered by the com­puls­ory meas­ures court ex­pires, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor may file an ap­plic­a­tion to ex­tend the peri­od of re­mand. If the com­puls­ory meas­ures court has not lim­ited the peri­od of re­mand, the ap­plic­a­tion must be filed be­fore the ac­cused has spent 3 months on re­mand.

2The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall file a writ­ten ap­plic­a­tion stat­ing the grounds with the com­puls­ory meas­ures court 4 days at the latest be­fore the ex­piry of the peri­od of re­mand, to­geth­er with the most rel­ev­ant files.

3The com­puls­ory meas­ures court shall give the ac­cused and his or her de­fence law­yer the op­por­tun­ity to in­spect the files in its pos­ses­sion and to re­spond to the ap­plic­a­tion in writ­ing with­in 3 days.

4It may or­der the pro­vi­sion­al con­tinu­ation of re­mand pending its de­cision.

5The com­puls­ory meas­ures court shall de­cide at the latest with­in 5 days of re­ceipt of the re­sponse or the ex­piry of the time lim­it men­tioned in para­graph 3 above. It may in­struct the pub­lic pro­sec­utor to carry out spe­cif­ic in­vest­ig­at­ive activ­it­ies, or or­der an al­tern­at­ive meas­ure.

6The pro­ceed­ings are nor­mally con­duc­ted in writ­ing, but the com­puls­ory meas­ures court may or­der a hear­ing, which shall be held in private.

7An ex­ten­sion of the peri­od on re­mand may be gran­ted for a max­im­um of 3 months, or in ex­cep­tion­al cases for a max­im­um of 6 months.

Art. 228 Application for release from remand  

1The ac­cused may ap­ply to the pub­lic pro­sec­utor at any time in writ­ing or or­ally on re­cord for re­lease from re­mand, sub­ject to para­graph 5 be­low. The ap­plic­a­tion must be ac­com­pan­ied by a brief state­ment of grounds.

2If the pub­lic pro­sec­utor grants the ap­plic­a­tion, it shall re­lease the ac­cused from re­mand im­me­di­ately. If it does not wish to grant the ap­plic­a­tion, it shall pass the same to­geth­er with the files no later than 3 days after re­ceipt to the com­puls­ory meas­ures court ac­com­pan­ied by a state­ment of its opin­ion.

3The com­puls­ory meas­ures court shall send the opin­ion to the ac­cused and his or her de­fence law­yer and al­low them 3 days to re­spond.

4The com­puls­ory meas­ures court shall de­cide at the latest with­in 5 days of re­ceiv­ing the re­sponse or of the ex­piry of the time lim­it men­tioned in para­graph 3 above. If the ac­cused ex­pressly waives the right to a hear­ing, the de­cision may be is­sued in writ­ten pro­ceed­ings. Art­icle 226 para­graphs 2–5 also ap­plies mu­tatis mutandis.

5The com­puls­ory meas­ures court may in its de­cision spe­cify a time lim­it of a max­im­um of one month with­in which the ac­cused is not per­mit­ted to file a fur­ther ap­plic­a­tion for re­lease.

Section 6 Preventive Detention

Art. 229 Decision to order preventive detention  

1In cases where the ac­cused has already been on re­mand, an ap­plic­a­tion for pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion is filed in writ­ing by the pub­lic pro­sec­utor and the de­cision on wheth­er to or­der pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion is taken by the com­puls­ory meas­ures court.

2Where grounds for de­ten­tion arise only after charges have been brought, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings in the court of first in­stance shall con­duct de­ten­tion pro­ceed­ings in ana­log­ous ap­plic­a­tion of Art­icle 224 and shall re­quest the com­puls­ory meas­ures court to or­der pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion.

3The pro­ceed­ings be­fore the com­puls­ory meas­ures court are gov­erned by:

a.
Art­icles 225 and 226 mu­tatis mutandis where the ac­cused has not been on re­mand;
b.
Art­icle 227 mu­tatis mutandis where the ac­cused has already been on re­mand.
Art. 230 Release from preventive detention during the proceedings before the court of first instance  

1The ac­cused and the pub­lic pro­sec­utor may file an ap­plic­a­tion for re­lease from de­ten­tion dur­ing the pro­ceed­ings be­fore the court of first in­stance.

2The ap­plic­a­tion must be sub­mit­ted to the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings in the court of first in­stance.

3If the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings grants the ap­plic­a­tion, he or she shall re­lease the ac­cused from de­ten­tion im­me­di­ately. If the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings does not wish to grant the ap­plic­a­tion, it shall be passed on to the com­puls­ory meas­ures court for a de­cision to be made.

4The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings in the court of first in­stance may also or­der the ac­cused to be re­leased from de­ten­tion provided the pub­lic pro­sec­utor con­sents. If the pub­lic pro­sec­utor does not con­sent, the com­puls­ory meas­ures court de­cides.

5The pro­vi­sions of Art­icle 228 also ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis.

Art. 231 Preventive detention following the judgment of the court of first instance  

1The court of first in­stance shall de­cide in its judg­ment wheth­er a per­son con­victed should be placed or should re­main in pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion:

a.
in or­der to en­sure that a sen­tence or meas­ure is duly ex­ecuted;
b.
with a view to ap­pel­late pro­ceed­ings.

2If an ac­cused in de­ten­tion is ac­quit­ted and the court of first in­stance or­ders his or her re­lease, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor may ap­ply to the court of first in­stance for the dir­ect­or of ap­pel­late pro­ceed­ings to or­der the con­tinu­ation of pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion. In such a case, the per­son con­cerned shall re­main in de­ten­tion un­til the dir­ect­or of ap­pel­late pro­ceed­ings makes a de­cision. The dir­ect­or of ap­pel­late pro­ceed­ings shall de­cide on the ap­plic­a­tion made by the pub­lic pro­sec­utor with­in 5 days of the ap­plic­a­tion be­ing filed.

3If the ob­jec­tions with­drawn, the court of first in­stance shall de­cide on how the peri­od spent in de­ten­tion fol­low­ing the judg­ment will be taken in­to ac­count.

Art. 232 Preventive detention during proceedings before the court of appeal  

1If grounds for de­ten­tion arise only dur­ing pro­ceed­ings be­fore the court of ap­peal, the dir­ect­or of ap­pel­late pro­ceed­ings shall or­der the per­son to be placed in de­ten­tion to be brought be­fore the court im­me­di­ately in or­der to be heard.

2A de­cision shall be made with­in 48 hours of the hear­ing; their de­cision is fi­nal.

Art. 233 Application for release from detention during proceedings before the court of appeal  

The dir­ect­or of ap­pel­late pro­ceed­ings shall de­cide on an ap­plic­a­tion for re­lease from de­ten­tion with­in 5 days; the de­cision is fi­nal.

Section 7 Execution of Remand and Preventive Detention

Art. 234 Detention centre  

1Re­mand and pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion is nor­mally car­ried out in de­ten­tion centres re­served for this pur­pose and which are oth­er­wise used only for the ex­e­cu­tion of short cus­todi­al sen­tences.

2If it is ad­vis­able for med­ic­al reas­ons, the rel­ev­ant can­ton­al au­thor­ity may ar­range for the de­tain­ee to be ad­mit­ted to a hos­pit­al or psy­chi­at­ric hos­pit­al.

Art. 235 Conditions of detention  

1The de­tain­ee's per­son­al free­dom may not be more strictly lim­ited than is re­quired for the pur­pose of de­ten­tion or for or­der and se­cur­ity in the de­ten­tion centre.

2Con­tact between the de­tain­ee and oth­er per­sons re­quires au­thor­isa­tion from the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings. Vis­its shall if ne­ces­sary be su­per­vised.

3The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall in­spect in­com­ing and out­go­ing post, with the ex­cep­tion of cor­res­pond­ence with the su­per­vis­ory and crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies. Dur­ing pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may del­eg­ate this task to the pub­lic pro­sec­utor.

4The de­tain­ee may com­mu­nic­ate freely with his or her de­fence agent without the con­tent of com­mu­nic­a­tions be­ing in­spec­ted. If there is jus­ti­fied sus­pi­cion that this right is be­ing ab­used, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may with ap­prov­al of the com­puls­ory meas­ures court re­strict free com­mu­nic­a­tion for a lim­ited peri­od, provided pri­or no­tice is giv­en to the de­tain­ee and the de­fence agent of the re­stric­tions.

5The can­tons shall reg­u­late the rights and ob­lig­a­tions of per­sons in cus­tody, their rights to leg­al re­dress, dis­cip­lin­ary meas­ures and the su­per­vi­sion of de­ten­tion centres.

Art. 236 Accelerated execution of sentences and measures  

1The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may au­thor­ise the ac­cused to be­gin a cus­todi­al sen­tence or cus­todi­al meas­ure in ad­vance of the an­ti­cip­ated date, provided the status of the pro­ceed­ings per­mit this.

2If the charges have already been filed, the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall con­sult the pub­lic pro­sec­utor.

3The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons may provide that the ex­e­cu­tion of a meas­ure in ad­vance of the an­ti­cip­ated date re­quires the con­sent of the au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for its ex­e­cu­tion.

4On ad­mis­sion to a pen­al in­sti­tu­tion, the ac­cused be­gins his or her sen­tence or meas­ure; from this point the ac­cused is gov­erned by the rel­ev­ant re­gime un­less this con­flicts with the pur­pose of the ac­cused's re­mand or pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion.

Section 8 Alternative Measures

Art. 237 General Provisions  

1The rel­ev­ant court shall or­der one or more le­ni­ent meas­ures in­stead of re­mand or pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion if such meas­ures achieve the same res­ult as de­ten­tion.

2Al­tern­at­ive meas­ures in­clude in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
the pay­ment of money bail;
b.
the sur­ren­der­ing of a pass­port or iden­tity pa­pers;
c.
the re­quire­ment to stay or not to stay in a spe­cif­ic place or in a spe­cif­ic house;
d.
the re­quire­ment to re­port to a pub­lic of­fice at reg­u­larly in­ter­vals;
e.
the re­quire­ment to do a reg­u­lar job;
f.
the re­quire­ment to un­der­go med­ic­al treat­ment or a med­ic­al ex­am­in­a­tion;
g.
the pro­hib­i­tion of mak­ing con­tact with spe­cif­ic per­sons.

3In or­der to mon­it­or such al­tern­at­ive meas­ures, the court may or­der the use of tech­nic­al devices and that they be se­curely fastened to the per­son be­ing mon­itored.

4The or­der­ing of al­tern­at­ive meas­ures and ap­peals against such meas­ures are gov­erned mu­tatis mutandis by the reg­u­la­tions on re­mand and pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion.

5The court may re­voke the al­tern­at­ive meas­ures at any time, or or­der oth­er al­tern­at­ive meas­ures or the ac­cused's re­mand or pre­vent­ive de­ten­tion if new cir­cum­stances so re­quire or if the ac­cused fails to ful­fil the re­quire­ments stip­u­lated.

Art. 238 Payment of money bail  

1Where there is a risk that the ac­cused may ab­scond, the rel­ev­ant court may or­der pay­ment of a sum of money in or­der to en­sure that the ac­cused ap­pears for all pro­ced­ur­al acts or to be­gin a cus­todi­al sanc­tion.

2The amount of the bail pay­ment is as­sessed on the basis of the ser­i­ous­ness of the of­fences of which the ac­cused is sus­pec­ted and of the ac­cused's per­son­al cir­cum­stances.

3The pay­ment of money bail may be made in cash or by means of a guar­an­tee is­sued by a bank or in­sur­ance com­pany per­man­ently es­tab­lished in Switzer­land.

Art. 239 Return of the bail payment  

1The bail pay­ment shall be re­turned if:

a.
the grounds for de­ten­tion no longer ap­ply;
b.
the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings are con­cluded by a fi­nal judg­ment of aban­don­ment or ac­quit­tal;
c.
the ac­cused has be­gun a cus­todi­al sanc­tion.

2Be­fore the bail pay­ment made by the ac­cused is re­turned, any mon­et­ary pen­al­ties, fines, costs and dam­ages that have been im­posed on the ac­cused may be de­duc­ted from it.

3The au­thor­ity be­fore which the case is pending or was last pending shall de­cide on the re­turn of the bail pay­ment.

Art. 240 Forfeiture of the bail payment  

1If the ac­cused ab­sconds dur­ing the pro­ceed­ings or the ex­e­cu­tion of a cus­todi­al sanc­tion, the bail pay­ment shall be for­feited to the Con­fed­er­a­tion or to the can­ton whose court ordered the same.

2If a third party made the bail pay­ment, the for­feit­ure may be waived if the third party provides the au­thor­it­ies with in­form­a­tion in good time to en­able the ac­cused to be ap­pre­hen­ded.

3The au­thor­ity be­fore which the case is pending or was last pending shall de­cide on the for­feit­ure of the bail pay­ment.

4A for­feited bail pay­ment shall be used in ana­log­ous ap­plic­a­tion of Art­icle 73 SCC1 to cov­er the claims of per­sons suf­fer­ing harm and, if a sur­plus re­mains, to cov­er the mon­et­ary pen­al­ties, fines and the pro­ced­ur­al costs. Any sur­plus still re­main­ing shall pass to the Con­fed­er­a­tion or the can­ton.


1 SR 311.0

Chapter 4 Searches and Examinations

Section 1 General Provisions

Art. 241 Authorisation  

1Searches shall be au­thor­ised by writ­ten war­rant. In cases of ur­gency, they may be au­thor­ised or­ally, but this must be con­firmed sub­sequently in writ­ing.

2The war­rant shall in­dic­ate:

a.
the per­sons, premises, prop­erty or re­cords to be searched;
b.
the pur­pose of the meas­ure;
c.
the au­thor­it­ies or per­sons au­thor­ised to con­duct the meas­ure.

3If there is a risk in any delay, the po­lice may au­thor­ise the manu­al search of body ori­fices and body cav­it­ies and carry out searches without a war­rant; they shall in­form com­pet­ent crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity about the search im­me­di­ately.

4The po­lice may search a per­son who has been stopped or ar­res­ted per­son, in par­tic­u­lar in or­der to guar­an­tee the safety of oth­er per­sons.

Art. 242 Conduct of searches  

1The au­thor­it­ies or per­sons car­ry­ing out the search shall take suit­able safety pre­cau­tions in or­der to achieve the aim of the meas­ure.

2They may pro­hib­it per­sons from leav­ing dur­ing a search.

Art. 243 Accidental finds  

1Evid­ence or prop­erty found that is not con­nec­ted with the of­fence un­der in­vest­ig­a­tion but which ap­pears to re­late to a dif­fer­ent of­fence shall be se­cured.

2The prop­erty shall be handed over with a re­port there­on to the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings, who shall de­cide on the fur­ther course of ac­tion.

Section 2 Searches of Premises

Art. 244 Principle  

1Houses, dwell­ings and oth­er rooms not gen­er­ally ac­cess­ible may only be searched with the con­sent the pro­pri­et­or.

2The pro­pri­et­or's con­sent is not re­quired if it is sus­pec­ted that on the premises:

a.
there are wanted per­sons;
b.
there is forensic evid­ence or prop­erty or as­sets that must be seized;
c.
of­fences are be­ing com­mit­ted.
Art. 245 Conduct of searches  

1The per­sons au­thor­ised to carry out the search shall pro­duce the search war­rant at the start of the search.

2Pro­pri­et­ors of premises be­ing searched who are present must re­main on the premises dur­ing the search. If they are ab­sent, if pos­sible an adult fam­ily mem­ber or an­oth­er suit­able per­son must re­main present.

Section 3 Search of Records and Recordings

Art. 246 Principle  

Doc­u­ments, au­dio, video and oth­er re­cord­ings, data car­ri­ers and equip­ment for pro­cessing and stor­ing in­form­a­tion may be searched if it is sus­pec­ted that they con­tain in­form­a­tion that is li­able to seizure.

Art. 247 Conduct  

1The pro­pri­et­or may com­ment be­fore a search on the con­tent of re­cords and re­cord­ings.

2Ex­perts may be called in to ex­am­ine the con­tent of re­cords and re­cord­ings, and in par­tic­u­lar to identi­fy re­cords and re­cord­ings with pro­tec­ted con­tent.

3The pro­pri­et­or may provide the crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity with cop­ies of re­cords and re­cord­ings and prin­touts of stored in­form­a­tion if this is suf­fi­cient for the pur­pose of the pro­ceed­ings.

Art. 248 Sealing of evidence  

1Re­cords and prop­erty that ac­cord­ing to the pro­pri­et­or may not be searched or seized due to the right to re­main si­lent or to re­fuse to testi­fy or for oth­er reas­ons must be sealed and may neither be in­spec­ted nor used by the crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies.

2Un­less the crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity files a re­quest for the re­mov­al of the seals with­in 20 days, the sealed re­cords and prop­erty shall be re­turned to the pro­pri­et­or.

3If it files a re­quest for the re­mov­al of the seals, the fol­low­ing courts shall is­sue a fi­nal judg­ment there­on with­in a month:

a.
in pre­lim­in­ary pro­ceed­ings: the com­puls­ory meas­ures court;
b.
in oth­er cases: the court be­fore which the case is pending.

4The court may call in an ex­pert to ex­am­ine the con­tent of re­cords and prop­erty.

Section 4 Searches of Persons and Property

Art. 249 Principle  

Per­sons and prop­erty may only be searched without con­sent if it is sus­pec­ted that forensic evid­ence or prop­erty or as­sets that must be seized may be found.

Art. 250 Conduct  

1Search­ing per­sons in­cludes the ex­am­in­a­tion of cloth­ing, items car­ried by the per­son con­cerned, con­tain­ers and vehicles, the sur­face of the body and vis­ible body ori­fices and body cav­it­ies.

2Searches of a per­son's gen­it­al area shall be car­ried out by a per­son of the same gender or by a doc­tor, un­less the meas­ure can­not be delayed.

Section 5 Examination of Persons

Art. 251 Principle  

1An ex­am­in­a­tion of a per­son in­cludes an ex­am­in­a­tion of their phys­ic­al or men­tal con­di­tion.

2The ac­cused may be ques­tioned in or­der to:

a.
es­tab­lish the facts of the case;
b.
es­tab­lish wheth­er the he or she had the men­tal ca­pa­city to be held crim­in­ally li­able, is fit to plead and to with­stand de­ten­tion.

3In­ter­ven­tions in the phys­ic­al in­teg­rity of the ac­cused may be ordered provided they do not cause par­tic­u­lar pain or any risk to health.

4Ex­am­in­a­tions and in­ter­ven­tions in the phys­ic­al in­teg­rity of per­sons oth­er than the ac­cused are only per­mit­ted without con­sent if they are es­sen­tial in or­der to prop­erly in­vest­ig­ate an of­fence un­der Art­icles 111–113, 122, 124, 140, 184, 185, 187, 189, 190 or 191 SCC1.2


1 SR 311.0
2 Amended by No III of the FA of 30 Sept. 2011, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2012 (AS 2012 2575; BBl 2010 5651 5677).

Art. 252 Conduct of physical examinations  

Ex­am­in­a­tions of per­sons and in­ter­ven­tions in their phys­ic­al in­teg­rity shall be car­ried out by a doc­tor or an­oth­er med­ic­al spe­cial­ist.

Section 6 Examination of Dead Bodies

Art. 253 Unnatural deaths  

1If there are in­dic­a­tions that a death did not oc­cur nat­ur­ally, and in par­tic­u­lar in­dic­a­tions of an of­fence, or if the body is uniden­ti­fied, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall or­der an in­spec­tion of the body to be car­ried out by a spe­cial­ist doc­tor in or­der to es­tab­lish the cause of death or to identi­fy the body.

2If, after the in­spec­tion of the body, there is no evid­ence that an of­fence has been com­mit­ted and if iden­tity is es­tab­lished, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall re­lease the body for the fu­ner­al.

3The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall oth­er­wise or­der the body to be se­cured and fur­ther tests, and if ne­ces­sary an autopsy to be car­ried out by an in­sti­tute for forensic medi­cine. It may or­der the body or parts there­of to be re­tained for as long as re­quired for the pur­pose of the in­vest­ig­a­tion.

4The can­tons shall de­cide per­sons in the med­ic­al pro­fes­sion are re­quired to re­port un­nat­ur­al deaths to the crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies.

Art. 254 Exhumation  

If it ap­pears ne­ces­sary in for the prop­er in­vest­ig­a­tion of an of­fence, the ex­huma­tion of a body or the open­ing of an urn con­tain­ing its ashes may be ordered.

Chapter 5 DNA Analyses

Art. 255 General requirements  

1In or­der to in­vest­ig­ate a felony or a mis­de­mean­our, a sample may be taken to cre­ate a DNA pro­file from:

a.
the ac­cused;
b.
oth­er per­sons, in par­tic­u­lar vic­tims or per­sons en­titled to be present at the place of com­mis­sion, in­so­far as this is ne­ces­sary to dis­tin­guish their bio­lo­gic­al ma­ter­i­al from that of the ac­cused;
c.
de­ceased per­sons;
d.
bio­lo­gic­al ma­ter­i­al rel­ev­ant to the of­fence.

2The po­lice may or­der:

a.
a sample to be taken from per­sons by non-in­vas­ive meth­ods;
b.
the cre­ation of a DNA pro­file from bio­lo­gic­al ma­ter­i­al rel­ev­ant to the of­fence.
Art. 256 Mass testing  

In an in­vest­ig­a­tion in­to a felony, the com­puls­ory meas­ures court may at the re­quest of the pub­lic pro­sec­utor or­der that samples be taken to cre­ate DNA pro­files from per­sons who dis­play spe­cif­ic char­ac­ter­ist­ics es­tab­lished as be­ing rel­ev­ant to the com­mis­sion of the of­fence.

Art. 257 Convicted persons  

The court may in its judg­ment or­der that a sample be taken to cre­ate a DNA pro­file from per­sons who:

a.
have re­ceived a cus­todi­al sen­tence of more than a year on be­ing con­victed of a wil­fully com­mit­ted felony;
b.
have been con­victed of a wil­fully com­mit­ted felony or mis­de­mean­our against life and limb or against sexu­al in­teg­rity;
c.
have been ordered to un­der­go a thera­peut­ic meas­ure or the in­def­in­ite in­car­cer­a­tion.
Art. 258 Taking samples  

Where in­vas­ive meth­ods are used to take samples, the sample shall be taken by a doc­tor or an­oth­er med­ic­al spe­cial­ist.

Art. 259 Application of the DNA Profiling Act  

The DNA Pro­fil­ing Act of 20 June 20031 also ap­plies.


1 SR 363

Chapter 6 Recording Identification Data, Handwriting and Voice Samples

Art. 260 Recording identification data  

1When re­cord­ing iden­ti­fic­a­tion data, the phys­ic­al char­ac­ter­ist­ics of a per­son shall be noted and prints taken of parts of the body.

2The po­lice, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor and the courts, or in cases of ur­gency the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may or­der the re­cord­ing of identi­fy­ing data.

3The re­cord­ing of identi­fy­ing data shall be ordered in a writ­ten war­rant, with a brief state­ment of the reas­ons. In cases of ur­gency, it may be ordered or­ally, but must sub­sequently be con­firmed and ex­plained in writ­ing.

4If the per­son con­cerned re­fuses to ac­cept the po­lice or­der, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall de­cide.

Art. 261 Retention and use of identifying documents  

1Doc­u­ments that identi­fy the ac­cused may be re­tained out­side the case file for the fol­low­ing peri­ods and, in the event of a reas­on­able sus­pi­cion that a new of­fence has been com­mit­ted may also be used:

a.
in the event of the ac­cused's con­vic­tion or his or her ac­quit­tal on the grounds that he or she not leg­ally re­spons­ible due to a men­tal dis­order: un­til the ex­piry the time lim­its for the re­mov­al of the rel­ev­ant entry from the re­gister of crim­in­al con­vic­tions;
b.
in the event of ac­quit­tal on oth­er grounds, the aban­don­ment of the pro­ceed­ings or a de­cision to not to bring pro­ceed­ings: un­til the de­cision be­comes leg­ally bind­ing.

2If it is an­ti­cip­ated in a case un­der para­graph 1 let­ter b due to cer­tain mat­ters that doc­u­ments identi­fy­ing the ac­cused could be used in the in­vest­ig­a­tion of fu­ture of­fences, they may be re­tained and used with the con­sent of the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings for a max­im­um of 10 years from when the de­cision be­comes leg­ally bind­ing.

3Doc­u­ments identi­fy­ing per­sons oth­er than the ac­cused must be des­troyed as soon as the pro­ceed­ings against the ac­cused have been con­cluded or aban­doned or it has been de­cided not to bring pro­ceed­ings.

4If it be­comes clear be­fore the ex­piry of the time lim­its un­der para­graphs 1–3 that there is no longer any in­terest in re­tain­ing or us­ing the identi­fy­ing doc­u­ments, they shall be des­troyed.

Art. 262 Handwriting and voice samples  

1Ac­cused per­sons, wit­nesses and per­sons provid­ing in­form­a­tion may be re­quired to provide hand­writ­ing or voice samples for com­par­is­on with oth­er such samples.

2Any per­son who re­fuses to provide such a sample may be is­sued with a fixed pen­alty fine. The fore­go­ing does not ap­ply to the ac­cused and, where such rights ap­ply, per­sons who have the right to re­main si­lent or to re­fuse to testi­fy.

Chapter 7 Seizure

Art. 263 Principle  

1Items and as­sets be­long­ing to an ac­cused or to a third party may be seized if it is ex­pec­ted that the items or as­sets:

a.
will be used as evid­ence;
b.
will be used as se­cur­ity for pro­ced­ur­al costs, mon­et­ary pen­al­ties, fines or dam­ages;
c.
will have to be re­turned to the per­sons suf­fer­ing harm;
d.
will have to be for­feited.

2Seizure shall be ordered on the basis of a writ­ten war­rant con­tain­ing a brief state­ment of the grounds. In ur­gent cases, seizure may be ordered or­ally, but the or­der must there­after be con­firmed in writ­ing.

3Where there is a risk in any delay, the po­lice or mem­bers of the pub­lic may pro­vi­sion­ally seize items or as­sets on be­half of the pub­lic pro­sec­utor or the courts.

Art. 264 Restrictions  

1The fol­low­ing items may not be seized ir­re­spect­ive of their loc­a­tion and of when they were cre­ated:

a.
doc­u­ments used in com­mu­nic­a­tions between the ac­cused and his or her de­fence law­yer;
b.
per­son­al re­cords and cor­res­pond­ence be­long­ing to the ac­cused if the in­terest in pro­tect­ing his or her pri­vacy out­weighs the in­terest in pro­sec­u­tion;
c.1
items and doc­u­ments used in com­mu­nic­a­tions between the ac­cused and per­sons who may re­fuse to testi­fy in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 170–173 and who are not ac­cused of an of­fence re­lat­ing to the same case;
d.2
items and doc­u­ments used in com­mu­nic­a­tions between an­oth­er per­son and his or her law­yer provided the law­yer is en­titled to rep­res­ent cli­ents be­fore Swiss courts in ac­cord­ance with the Law­yers Act of 23 June 20003 and is not ac­cused an of­fence re­lat­ing to the same case.

2The re­stric­tions in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 do not ap­ply to items and as­sets that must be seized with a view to their re­turn to the per­son suf­fer­ing harm or their for­feit­ure.

3If an en­titled per­son claims that a seizure of items or as­sets is not per­mit­ted on the grounds of a right to re­fuse to make a state­ment or testi­fy or for oth­er reas­ons, the crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies shall pro­ceed in ac­cord­ance with the reg­u­la­tions on the seal­ing of evid­ence.


1 Amended by No I 6 of the FA of 28 Sept. 2012 on the Amend­ment of Pro­ced­ur­al Pro­vi­sions on Pro­fes­sion­al Con­fid­en­ti­al­ity for Law­yers, in force since 1 May 2013 (AS 2013 847; BBl 2011 8181).
2 In­ser­ted by No I 6 of the FA of 28 Sept. 2012 on the Amend­ment of Pro­ced­ur­al Pro­vi­sions on Pro­fes­sion­al Con­fid­en­ti­al­ity for Law­yers, in force since 1 May 2013 (AS 2013 847; BBl 2011 8181).
3 SR 935.61

Art. 265 Duty to hand over items or assets  

1The hold­er is ob­liged to hand over items or as­sets that should be seized.

2The fol­low­ing per­sons are not re­quired to hand over items or as­sets:

a.
the ac­cused;
b.
per­sons who have the right to re­main si­lent or to re­fuse to testi­fy, to the ex­tent that that right ap­plies;
c.
cor­por­ate un­der­tak­ings, if by hand­ing over items they could in­crim­in­ate them­selves such that they:
1.
could be held li­able un­der crim­in­al law or
2.
could be held li­able un­der civil law and if their in­terest in pro­tec­tion out­weighs the in­terest in pro­sec­u­tion.

3The crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity may de­mand that the per­son ob­liged to hand over items or as­sets does so, may fix a dead­line, and no­ti­fy him or her that in the event of non-com­pli­ance the pen­al­ties men­tioned in Art­icle 292 SCC1 or a fixed pen­alty fine may be im­posed.

4Com­puls­ory meas­ures are only per­mit­ted if the per­son con­cerned re­fuses to hand over the items or as­sets or if it may be as­sumed that a de­mand to hand over the items or as­sets may pre­ju­dice the suc­cess of the meas­ure.


1 SR 311.0

Art. 266 Procedure  

1The crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity or­der­ing seizure shall con­firm that it has re­ceived the prop­erty and as­sets seized or handed over in the seizure or­der or in a sep­ar­ate re­ceipt.

2It shall draw up a list and safe­guard the prop­erty and as­sets ap­pro­pri­ately.

3If im­mov­able prop­erty is seized, an in­hib­i­tion shall be ordered; this shall be re­cor­ded in the Land Re­gister.

4The seizure of a debt shall be no­ti­fied to the debt­or, who shall be ad­vised that re­pay­ment to the cred­it­or will not settle the debt.

5Prop­erty that is sub­ject to rap­id de­pre­ci­ation or re­quires ex­pens­ive main­ten­ance, as well as se­cur­it­ies or oth­er as­sets with a stock ex­change or mar­ket price may be sold im­me­di­ately in ac­cord­ance with the Fed­er­al Act of 11 April 18891 on Debt En­force­ment and Bank­ruptcy (DEBA). The pro­ceeds shall be seized.

6The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the in­vest­ment of seized as­sets.


1 SR 281.1

Art. 267 Decision on seized property and assets  

1If the grounds for seizure no longer ap­ply, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor or court shall re­voke the seizure or­der and hand over the prop­erty or as­sets to the per­son en­titled to them.

2Where it is un­dis­puted that a per­son has as a dir­ect res­ult of the of­fence been de­prived of an item of prop­erty or an as­set be­long­ing to him or her, the crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity shall re­turn the prop­erty or as­set to the per­son en­titled to it be­fore the con­clu­sion of the pro­ceed­ings.

3Un­less the or­der to seize an item of prop­erty or an as­set has already been re­voked, a de­cision on its re­turn to the en­titled per­son, its use to cov­er costs or its for­feit­ure in shall be made in the fi­nal judg­ment.

4If two or more per­sons lay claim to an item of prop­erty or an as­set in re­spect of which the seizure or­der is to be re­voked, the court may de­cide on the is­sue.

5The crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity may award prop­erty or as­sets to a per­son and set the oth­er claimants a time lim­it with­in which to raise a civil ac­tion.

6If at the time when the seizure or­der is re­voked the iden­tity of the per­son en­titled to the prop­erty or as­sets is un­known, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor or the court shall give pub­lic no­tice that the prop­erty or as­sets are avail­able to be claimed. If no one makes a claim with­in five years of no­tice be­ing giv­en, the seized prop­erty and as­sets shall pass to the can­ton or to the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

Art. 268 Seizure to cover costs  

1As­sets be­long­ing to the ac­cused may be seized to the ex­tent that is an­ti­cip­ated to be re­quired to cov­er:

a.
pro­ced­ur­al costs and dam­ages;
b.
mon­et­ary pen­al­ties and fines.

2The crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity shall take ac­count of the fin­an­cial cir­cum­stances of the ac­cused and his or her fam­ily when de­cid­ing on seizure.

3Ex­emp­ted from seizure are as­sets that may not be seized in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 92–94 DEBA1.


1 SR 281.1

Chapter 8 Covert Surveillance Measures

Section 1 Surveillance of Post and Telecommunications

Art. 269 Requirements  

1The pub­lic pro­sec­utor may ar­range for post and tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions to be mon­itored if:

a.
there is a strong sus­pi­cion that an of­fence lis­ted in para­graph 2 has been com­mit­ted;
b.
the ser­i­ous­ness of the of­fence jus­ti­fies sur­veil­lance; and
c.
in­vest­ig­at­ive activ­it­ies car­ried out so far have been un­suc­cess­ful or the en­quir­ies would oth­er­wise have no pro­spect of suc­cess or be made un­reas­on­ably com­plic­ated.

2Sur­veil­lance may be ordered in the in­vest­ig­a­tion of the of­fences un­der the fol­low­ing Art­icles:

a.1
SCC2: Art­icles 111–113, 115, 118 para­graph 2, 122, 124, 127, 129, 135, 138–140, 143, 144 para­graph 3, 144bis num­ber 1 para­graph 2 and num­ber 2 para­graph 2, 146–148, 156, 157 num­ber 2, 158 num­ber 1 para­graph 3 and num­ber 2, 160, 163 num­ber 1, 180, 181, 182–185, 187, 188 num­ber 1, 189–191, 192 para­graph 1, 195–197, 220, 221 para­graphs 1 and 2, 223 num­ber 1, 224 para­graph 1, 226, 227 num­ber 1 para­graph 1, 228 num­ber 1 para­graph 1, 230bis, 231 num­ber 1, 232 num­ber 1, 233 num­ber 1, 234 para­graph 1, 237 num­ber 1, 238 para­graph 1, 240 para­graph 1, 242, 244, 251 num­ber 1, 258, 259 para­graph 1, 260bis–260quin­quies, 261bis, 264–267, 271, 272 num­ber 2, 273, 274 num­ber 1 para­graph 2, 285, 301, 303 num­ber 1, 305, 305bis num­ber 2, 310, 312, 314, 317 num­ber 1, 319, 322ter, 322quater and 322sep­ties;
b.3
Fed­er­al Act of 16 Decem­ber 20054 on For­eign Na­tion­als: Art­icles 116 para­graph 3 and 118 para­graph 3;
c.
Fed­er­al Act of 22 June 20015 on the Hag­ue Con­ven­tion on Ad­op­tion and on Meas­ures to Pro­tect Chil­dren in In­ter­na­tion­al Ad­op­tion Cases: Art­icle 24;
d.6
War Ma­ter­i­al Act of 13 Decem­ber 19967: Art­icles 33 para­graph 2 and 34–35b;
e.
Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Act of 21 March 20038: Art­icles 88 para­graphs 1 and 2, 89 para­graphs 1 and 2 and 90 para­graph 1;
f.9
Nar­cot­ics Act of 3 Oc­to­ber 195110: Art­icles 19 num­ber 1 second sen­tence and num­ber 2, and 20 num­ber 1 second sen­tence;
g.
En­vir­on­ment­al Pro­tec­tion Act of 7 Oc­to­ber 198311: Art­icle 60 para­graph 1 let­ters g–i as well as m and o;
h.
Goods Con­trol Act of 13 Decem­ber 199612: Art­icle 14 para­graph 2;
i.13
Sport Pro­mo­tion Act of 17 June 201114: Art­icle 22 para­graphs 2 and 25a para­graph 3;
j.15
Fin­an­cial Mar­ket In­fra­struc­ture Act of 19 June 201516: Art­icles 154 and 155;
k.17
Weapons Act of 20 June 199718: Art­icle 33 para­graph 3;
l.19
Medi­cin­al Products Act of 15 Decem­ber 200020: Art­icle 86 para­graphs 2 and 3;
m.21
Gambling Act of 29 Septem­ber 201722: Art­icle 130 para­graph 2 for the of­fences un­der Art­icle 130 para­graph 1 let­ter a.

3If the ad­ju­dic­a­tion an of­fence sub­ject to mil­it­ary jur­is­dic­tion is as­signed to the jur­is­dic­tion of the civil courts, the sur­veil­lance of post and tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions may also be ordered in the in­vest­ig­a­tion of the of­fences un­der Art­icle 70 para­graph 2 of the Mil­it­ary Crim­in­al Pro­ced­ure Code of 23 March 197923.


1 Amended by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 18 March 2016 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic, in force since 1 March 2018 (AS 2018 117; BBl 2013 2683).
2 SR 311.0
3 Amended by An­nex No II 7 of the Crim­in­al Justice Au­thor­it­ies Act of 19 March 2010, in force since 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 3267; BBl 2008 8125).
4 SR 142.20
5 SR 211.221.31
6 Amended by No II of the FA of 16 March 2012, in force since 1 Feb. 2013 (AS 2013 295; BBl 2011 5905).
7 SR 514.51
8 SR 732.1
9 Cor­rec­tion by the Fed­er­al As­sembly Draft­ing Com­mit­tee dated 19 Sept. 2014, pub­lished on 4 Oct. 2014 (AS 2011 4487).
10 SR 812.121
11 SR 814.01
12 SR 946.202
13 In­ser­ted by Art. 34 No 2 of the Sport Pro­mo­tion Act of 17 June 2011 (AS 2012 3953; BBl 2009 8189). Amended by An­nex No II 2 of the Gambling Act of 29 Sept. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2019 (AS 2018 5103; BBl 2015 8387).
14 SR 415.0
15 In­ser­ted by No II 4 of the FA of 28 Sept. 2012 (AS 2013 1103; BBl 2011 6873). Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Fin­an­cial Mar­ket In­fra­struc­ture Act of 19 June 2015, in force since 1 Jan. 2016 (AS 2015 5339; BBl 2014 7483).
16 SR 958.1
17 In­ser­ted by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 18 March 2016 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic, in force since 1 March 2018 (AS 2018 117; BBl 2013 2683).
18 SR 514.54
19 In­ser­ted by An­nex No 1 of the FD of 29 Sept. 2017 (Medicrime Con­ven­tion), in force since 1 Jan. 2019 (AS 2018 4771; BBl 2017 3135).
20 SR 812.21
21 In­ser­ted by An­nex No II 2 of the Gambling Act of 29 Sept. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2019 (AS 2018 5103; BBl 2015 8387).
22 SR 935.51
23 SR 322.1

Art. 269bis Use of special technical devices for the surveillance of telecommunications  

1The pub­lic pro­sec­utor may or­der the use of spe­cial tech­nic­al devices for the sur­veil­lance of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions in or­der to listen to or re­cord con­ver­sa­tions, identi­fy a per­son or prop­erty or de­term­ine their loc­a­tion if:

a.
the re­quire­ments of Art­icle 269 are met;
b.
pre­vi­ous tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions sur­veil­lance meas­ures un­der Art­icle 269 have been un­suc­cess­ful or sur­veil­lance with these meas­ures would be fu­tile or dis­pro­por­tion­ately dif­fi­cult;
c.
the au­thor­isa­tion re­quired un­der tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions law has been ob­tained to use these devices at the time of use.

2The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall keep stat­ist­ics on the use of these forms of sur­veil­lance. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the de­tails.


1 In­ser­ted by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 18 March 2016 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic, in force since 1 March 2018 (AS 2018 117; BBl 2013 2683).

Art. 269ter Use of special software for the surveillance of telecommunications  

1The pub­lic pro­sec­utor may or­der the in­tro­duc­tion of spe­cial soft­ware in­to a data pro­cessing sys­tem in or­der to in­ter­cept and re­cov­er the con­tent of com­mu­nic­a­tions and tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions metadata in un­en­cryp­ted form provided:

a.
the con­di­tions of Art­icle 269 para­graphs 1 and 3 are met;
b.
the pro­ceed­ings re­late to an of­fence lis­ted in Art­icle 286 para­graph 2;
c.
pre­vi­ous tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions sur­veil­lance meas­ures un­der Art­icle 269 have been un­suc­cess­ful or sur­veil­lance with these meas­ures would be fu­tile or dis­pro­por­tion­ately dif­fi­cult.

2In the sur­veil­lance or­der, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall spe­cify:

a.
the de­sired data types; and
b.
the non-pub­lic spaces that may have to be entered in or­der to in­tro­duce spe­cial soft­ware in­to the rel­ev­ant data pro­cessing sys­tem.

3Data not covered by para­graph that is col­lec­ted when us­ing such soft­ware must be des­troyed im­me­di­ately. No use may be made of in­form­a­tion ob­tained from such data.

4The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall keep stat­ist­ics on these forms of sur­veil­lance. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the de­tails.


1 In­ser­ted by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 18 March 2016 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic, in force since 1 March 2018 (AS 2018 117; BBl 2013 2683).

Art. 269quater Requirements applicable to special software for the surveillance of telecommunications  

1The only spe­cial soft­ware that may be used is that which re­cords the sur­veil­lance un­al­ter­ably and without in­ter­rup­tion. The re­cord forms part of the case files.

2The re­cov­ery of data from the data pro­cessing sys­tem un­der sur­veil­lance to the rel­ev­ant crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity must take place se­curely.

3The crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity shall en­sure that the source code can be checked in or­der to veri­fy that the soft­ware has only leg­ally per­mit­ted func­tions.


1 In­ser­ted by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 18 March 2016 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic, in force since 1 March 2018 (AS 2018 117; BBl 2013 2683).

Art. 270 Subject matter of surveillance  

The post and tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions of the fol­low­ing per­sons may be mon­itored:1

a.
the ac­cused;
b.
third parties if there is reas­on to be­lieve based on spe­cif­ic in­form­a­tion that:
1.2
the ac­cused uses the postal ad­dress or the tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vice of the third party, or
2.
the third party re­ceives cer­tain com­mu­nic­a­tions on be­half of the ac­cused or passes on com­mu­nic­a­tions from the ac­cused to an­oth­er per­son.

1 Amended by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 18 March 2016 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic, in force since 1 March 2018 (AS 2018 117; BBl 2013 2683).
2 Amended by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 18 March 2016 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic, in force since 1 March 2018 (AS 2018 117; BBl 2013 2683).

Art. 271 Preservation of professional confidentiality  

1When mon­it­or­ing a per­son be­long­ing to one of the pro­fes­sions men­tioned in Art­icles 170–173, the court must en­sure that in­form­a­tion that is rel­ev­ant to the en­quir­ies or the reas­on why this per­son is be­ing mon­itored is sep­ar­ated from in­form­a­tion that is rel­ev­ant, in or­der to guar­an­tee that no pro­fes­sion­al secrets come to the know­ledge of the crim­in­al justice au­thor­ity. The sep­ar­ated data must be des­troyed im­me­di­ately; it may not be eval­u­ated.

2In­form­a­tion un­der para­graph 1 need not be sep­ar­ated be­fore­hand if:

a.
there is a strong sus­pi­cion that the per­son sub­ject to pro­fes­sion­al con­fid­en­ti­al­ity is guilty of an of­fence; and
b.
there are spe­cif­ic reas­ons jus­ti­fy­ing the dir­ect in­ter­cep­tion of com­mu­nic­a­tions.

3In the sur­veil­lance of oth­er per­sons, as soon as it is es­tab­lished that they have links with a per­son men­tioned in Art­icles 170–173, in­form­a­tion on com­mu­nic­a­tion with the per­son must be sep­ar­ated in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1. In­form­a­tion in re­spect of which a per­son men­tioned in Art­icles 170–173 may re­fuse to testi­fy must be re­moved from the case doc­u­ments and des­troyed im­me­di­ately; it may not be eval­u­ated.


1 Amended by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 18 March 2016 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic, in force since 1 March 2018 (AS 2018 117; BBl 2013 2683).

Art. 272 Duty to obtain authorisation and general authorisation  

1The sur­veil­lance of post and tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions re­quires the au­thor­isa­tion of the com­puls­ory meas­ures court.

2If en­quir­ies re­veal that the per­son un­der sur­veil­lance is chan­ging his or her tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vice reg­u­larly, the com­puls­ory meas­ures court may by way of ex­cep­tion au­thor­ise the sur­veil­lance of all iden­ti­fied ser­vices used by the per­son un­der sur­veil­lance for tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions so that au­thor­isa­tion is not re­quired in each in­di­vidu­al case (gen­er­al au­thor­isa­tion).1 The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall sub­mit a re­port to the com­puls­ory meas­ures court for ap­prov­al every month and on con­clu­sion of the sur­veil­lance.

3If dur­ing the sur­veil­lance of a ser­vice in terms of a gen­er­al au­thor­isa­tion, meas­ures are re­quired to pro­tect pro­fes­sion­al con­fid­en­ti­al­ity and such meas­ures are not men­tioned in the gen­er­al au­thor­isa­tion, an ap­plic­a­tion for au­thor­isa­tion for the in­di­vidu­al sur­veil­lance op­er­a­tion con­cerned must be sub­mit­ted to the com­puls­ory meas­ures court.2


1 Amended by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 18 March 2016 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic, in force since 1 March 2018 (AS 2018 117; BBl 2013 2683).
2 Amended by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 18 March 2016 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic, in force since 1 March 2018 (AS 2018 117; BBl 2013 2683).

Art. 273 Subscriber information, location identification and technical transmission features  

1If there is a strong sus­pi­cion that a felony or mis­de­mean­our or a con­tra­ven­tion in terms of Art­icle 179sep­ties SCC2 has been com­mit­ted, and if the re­quire­ments of Art­icle 269 para­graph 1 let­ters b and c of this Code are met, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor may re­quest metadata re­lat­ing to tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 8 let­ter b of the Fed­er­al Act of 18 March 20163 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic (SPTA) and metadata re­lat­ing to post in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 19 para­graph 1 let­ter b SPTA re­lat­ing to the per­son un­der sur­veil­lance.

2The or­der re­quires the ap­prov­al of the com­puls­ory meas­ures court.

3The in­form­a­tion men­tioned in para­graph 1 may be re­ques­ted ir­re­spect­ive of the dur­a­tion of sur­veil­lance and for the 6 months pri­or to the date of the re­quest.


1 Amended by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 18 March 2016 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic, in force since 1 March 2018 (AS 2018 117; BBl 2013 2683).
2 SR 311.0
3 SR 780.1

Art. 274 Authorisation procedure  

1The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall sub­mit the fol­low­ing doc­u­ments to the com­puls­ory meas­ures court with­in 24 hours of sur­veil­lance or the re­lease of in­form­a­tion be­ing ordered:

a.
the or­der;
b.
a state­ment of the reas­ons and the case doc­u­ments rel­ev­ant for au­thor­isa­tion.

2The com­puls­ory meas­ures court shall de­cide and provide a brief state­ment of the reas­ons with­in 5 days of the sur­veil­lance or the re­lease of in­form­a­tion be­ing ordered. It may grant au­thor­isa­tion sub­ject to a time lim­it or oth­er con­di­tions, or re­quest fur­ther in­form­a­tion or in­vest­ig­a­tions.

3The com­puls­ory meas­ures court shall give no­tice of the de­cision im­me­di­ately to the pub­lic pro­sec­utor and to the Post and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Sur­veil­lance Bur­eau in terms of Art­icle 3 SPTA1.2

4The au­thor­isa­tion shall ex­pressly state:

a.
which meas­ures must be taken to pro­tect pro­fes­sion­al con­fid­en­ti­al­ity;
b.
wheth­er non-pub­lic spaces may be entered in or­der to in­tro­duce spe­cial soft­ware in­to the rel­ev­ant data pro­cessing sys­tem.3

5The com­puls­ory meas­ures court shall grant au­thor­isa­tion for a max­im­um of 3 months. The au­thor­isa­tion may be ex­ten­ded on one or more oc­ca­sions for a max­im­um of 3 months at a time. If an ex­ten­sion is re­quired, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall file an ap­plic­a­tion for the ex­ten­sion, stat­ing the reas­ons there­for, be­fore ex­piry of the cur­rent au­thor­isa­tion.


1 SR 780.1
2 Amended by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 18 March 2016 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic, in force since 1 March 2018 (AS 2018 117; BBl 2013 2683).
3 Amended by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 18 March 2016 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic, in force since 1 March 2018 (AS 2018 117; BBl 2013 2683).

Art. 275 Conclusion of surveillance  

1The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall stop sur­veil­lance im­me­di­ately if:

a.
the re­quire­ments are no longer ful­filled; or
b.
the au­thor­isa­tion or its ex­ten­sion is re­fused.

2In cases un­der para­graph 1 let­ter a, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall no­ti­fy the com­puls­ory meas­ures court that sur­veil­lance has been con­cluded.

Art. 276 Results not required  

1Re­cords of au­thor­ised sur­veil­lance op­er­a­tions that are not re­quired for crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings shall be stored sep­ar­ately from the case doc­u­ments and des­troyed im­me­di­ately on con­clu­sion of the pro­ceed­ings.

2Postal items may be re­tained for as long as this is ne­ces­sary for the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings; they must be re­leased to the ad­dress­ee as soon as the status of the pro­ceed­ings per­mits.

Art. 277 Use of the results of unauthorised surveillance operations  

1Doc­u­ments and data car­ri­ers ob­tained in un­au­thor­ised sur­veil­lance activ­it­ies must be des­troyed im­me­di­ately. Postal items must be de­livered to the ad­dress­ee im­me­di­ately.

2The res­ults of un­au­thor­ised sur­veil­lance op­er­a­tions may not be used.

Art. 278 Accidental finds  

1If in the course of sur­veil­lance op­er­a­tions of­fences oth­er than those spe­cified in the sur­veil­lance or­der come to light, these find­ings may be used against the ac­cused provided sur­veil­lance would have been per­mit­ted in the in­vest­ig­a­tion of the of­fences con­cerned.

1bisIf of­fences come to light dur­ing sur­veil­lance op­er­a­tions in terms of Art­icles 35 and 36 SPTA1, the find­ings may be used sub­ject to the re­quire­ments spe­cified in para­graphs 2 and 3.2

2Find­ings re­lat­ing to of­fences com­mit­ted by a per­son who is not named as a sus­pect in the sur­veil­lance or­der may be used if the re­quire­ments for the sur­veil­lance of this per­son are ful­filled.

3In cases un­der para­graphs 1, 1bis and 2, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall or­der sur­veil­lance im­me­di­ately and be­gin the au­thor­isa­tion pro­ced­ure.3

4Re­cords that may not be used as ac­ci­dent­al finds must be stored sep­ar­ately from the case doc­u­ments and des­troyed on con­clu­sion of the pro­ceed­ings.

5Any find­ings made in a sur­veil­lance op­er­a­tion may be used to trace wanted per­sons.


1 SR 780.1
2 In­ser­ted by An­nex No II 7 of the Crim­in­al Justice Au­thor­it­ies Act of 19 March 2010 (AS 2010 3267; BBl 2008 8125). Amended by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 18 March 2016 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic, in force since 1 March 2018 (AS 2018 117; BBl 2013 2683).
3 Amended by An­nex No II 7 of the Crim­in­al Justice Au­thor­it­ies Act of 19 March 2010, in force since 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 3267; BBl 2008 8125).

Art. 279 Notice  

1The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall no­ti­fy the sus­pect un­der sur­veil­lance and third parties un­der sur­veil­lance in terms of Art­icle 270 let­ter b of the reas­on for and form and dur­a­tion of the sur­veil­lance op­er­a­tion on con­clu­sion of the pre­lim­in­ary pro­ceed­ings at the latest.

2With the con­sent of the com­puls­ory meas­ures court, no­tice may be de­ferred or dis­pensed with if:

a.
the find­ings are not used as evid­ence in court pro­ceed­ings; and
b.
de­fer­ring or dis­pens­ing with no­tice is ne­ces­sary to pro­tect over­rid­ing pub­lic or private in­terests.

3Per­sons whose post or tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions have been un­der sur­veil­lance or who have used a postal ad­dress or tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vice that has been un­der sur­veil­lance may file an ob­jec­tion un­der Art­icles 393–397.1 The peri­od for fil­ing the ob­jec­tion be­gins on re­ceipt of the no­tice.


1 Amended by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 18 March 2016 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic, in force since 1 March 2018 (AS 2018 117; BBl 2013 2683).

Section 2 Surveillance using Technical Surveillance Devices

Art. 280 Permitted use  

The pub­lic pro­sec­utor may use tech­nic­al sur­veil­lance devices in or­der to:

a.
listen to or re­cord words spoken in private;
b.
ob­serve or re­cord events in private or not gen­er­ally ac­cess­ible places;
c.
es­tab­lish the where­abouts of per­sons or prop­erty.
Art. 281 Requirements and conduct  

1Devices may only be used in re­la­tion to a sus­pect.

2Premises or vehicles of third parties may only be mon­itored if there is reas­on to be­lieve on the basis of spe­cif­ic in­form­a­tion that a sus­pect is present on those premises or us­ing that vehicle.

3Use of devices may not be ordered in or­der to:

a.
re­cord as evid­ence in court pro­ceed­ings events in­volving an ac­cused who is in cus­tody;
b.
mon­it­or premises or vehicles of a third party who be­longs to one of the pro­fes­sions men­tioned in Art­icles 170–173.

4The use of tech­nic­al sur­veil­lance devices is oth­er­wise gov­erned by Art­icles 269–279.

Section 3 Observation

Art. 282 Requirements  

1The pub­lic pro­sec­utor and, in the en­quir­ies, the po­lice may cov­ertly ob­serve per­sons and prop­erty in gen­er­ally ac­cess­ible loc­a­tions and make im­age or sound re­cord­ings while do­ing so if:

a.
there is reas­on to be­lieve on the basis of spe­cif­ic in­form­a­tion that felon­ies or mis­de­mean­ours have been com­mit­ted; and
b.
the en­quir­ies would oth­er­wise have no pro­spect of suc­cess or be made un­reas­on­ably com­plic­ated.

2Where ob­ser­va­tion activ­it­ies ordered by the po­lice have been con­duc­ted for one month, their con­tinu­ation re­quires au­thor­isa­tion by the pub­lic pro­sec­utor.

Art. 283 Notice  

1The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall no­ti­fy the per­sons dir­ectly con­cerned by ob­ser­va­tion activ­it­ies of the reas­on for and form and dur­a­tion of the ob­ser­va­tion activ­it­ies on con­clu­sion of the pre­lim­in­ary pro­ceed­ings at the latest.

2No­tice may be de­ferred or dis­pensed with if:

a.
the find­ings are not used as evid­ence in court pro­ceed­ings; and
b.
de­fer­ring or dis­pens­ing with no­tice is ne­ces­sary to pro­tect over­rid­ing pub­lic or private in­terests.

Section 4 Surveillance of Banking Transactions

Art. 284 Principle  

In or­der to in­vest­ig­ate felon­ies or mis­de­mean­ours, the com­puls­ory meas­ures court may, at the re­quest of the pub­lic pro­sec­utor, or­der the sur­veil­lance of trans­ac­tions between a sus­pect and a bank or bank-type in­sti­tu­tion.

Art. 285 Conduct  

1If the com­puls­ory meas­ures court au­thor­ises the ap­plic­a­tion, it shall is­sue the bank or bank-type in­sti­tu­tion with writ­ten in­struc­tion on:

a.
the in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments to be provided
b.
the secrecy meas­ures to be taken.

2The bank or bank-type in­sti­tu­tion is not re­quired to provide in­form­a­tion or doc­u­ments if in do­ing so it would in­crim­in­ate it­self to the ex­tent that:

a.
it could be con­victed of a crim­in­al of­fence; or
b.
it could be held li­able un­der civil law and if the in­terest to be pro­tec­ted out­weighs the in­terest in pro­sec­u­tion.

3The ac­count hold­er shall be no­ti­fied of the meas­ure after it has been car­ried out in ac­cord­ance with of Art­icle 279 para­graphs 1 and 2.

4Per­sons whose bank­ing trans­ac­tions have been mon­itored may file an ob­jec­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 393–397. The peri­od for fil­ing the ob­jec­tion be­gins on re­ceipt of the no­tice.

Section 5 Undercover Investigations

Art. 285a Definition  

In an un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­a­tion, po­lice of­ficers or per­sons tem­por­ar­ily ap­poin­ted to carry out po­lice du­ties make con­tact with per­sons un­der false pre­tences by us­ing a false iden­tity (cov­er) sup­por­ted by doc­u­ments with the aim of gain­ing the trust of those per­sons and in­filt­rat­ing a crim­in­al en­vir­on­ment in or­der to in­vest­ig­ate par­tic­u­larly ser­i­ous of­fences.


1 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 14 Dec. 2012 on Un­der­cov­er In­vest­ig­a­tions and En­quir­ies, in force since 1 May 2013 (AS 2013 1051; BBl 2012 5591 5609).

Art. 286 Requirements  

1The pub­lic pro­sec­utor may or­der an un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­a­tion if:

a.
it is sus­pec­ted that an of­fence lis­ted in para­graph 2 has been com­mit­ted;
b.
the ser­i­ous­ness of the of­fence jus­ti­fies the cov­ert in­vest­ig­a­tion; and
c.
pre­vi­ous in­vest­ig­at­ive activ­it­ies have been un­suc­cess­ful or the en­quir­ies would oth­er­wise have no pro­spect of suc­cess or be made un­reas­on­ably com­plic­ated.

2An un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­a­tion is per­mit­ted in re­spect of of­fences un­der the fol­low­ing Art­icles:

a.1
SCC2: Art­icles 111–113, 122, 124, 129, 135, 138–140, 143 para­graph 1, 144 para­graph 3, 144bis num­ber 1 para­graph 2 and num­ber 2 para­graph 2, 146 para­graphs 1 and 2, 147 para­graphs 1 and 2, 148, 156, 160, 182–185, 187, 188 num­ber 1, 189 para­graphs 1 and 3, 190 para­graphs 1 and 3, 191, 192 para­graph 1, 195, 196, 197 para­graphs 3–5, 221 para­graphs 1 and 2, 223 num­ber 1, 224 para­graph 1, 227 num­ber 1 para­graph 1, 228 num­ber 1 para­graph 1, 230bis, 231 num­ber 1, 232 num­ber 1, 233 num­ber 1, 234 para­graph 1, 237 num­ber 1, 238 para­graph 1, 240 para­graph 1, 242, 244 para­graph 2, 251 num­ber 1, 260bis–260quin­quies, 264–267, 271, 272 num­ber 2, 273, 274 num­ber 1 para­graph 2, 301, 305bis num­ber 2, 310, 322ter, 322quater and 322sep­ties;
b.3
Fed­er­al Act of 16. Decem­ber 20054 on For­eign Na­tion­als: Art­icles 116 para­graph 3 and 118 para­graph 3;
c.
Fed­er­al Act of 22. June 20015 on the Hag­ue Con­ven­tion on Ad­op­tion and on Meas­ures to Pro­tect Chil­dren in In­ter­na­tion­al Ad­op­tion Cases: Art­icle 24;
d.6
War Ma­ter­i­al Act of 13 Decem­ber 19967: Art­icles 33 para­graph 2 and 34–35b;
e.
Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Act of 21 March 20038: Art­icles 88 para­graphs 1 and 2, 89 para­graphs 1 and 2 and 90 para­graph 1;
f.9
Nar­cot­ics Act of 3 Oc­to­ber 195110: Art­icles 19 num­ber 1 second sen­tence and num­ber 2, and 20 num­ber 1 second sen­tence;
g.
Goods Con­trol Act of 13 Decem­ber 199611: Art­icle 14 para­graph 2;
h.12
Sport Pro­mo­tion Act of 17 June 201113: Art­icles 22 para­graph 2 and 25a para­graph 3;
i.14
Weapons Act of 20 June 199715: Art­icle 33 para­graph 3;
j.16
Medi­cin­al Products Act of 15 Decem­ber 200017: Art­icle 86 para­graphs 2 and 3;
k.18
Gambling Act of 29 Septem­ber 201719: Art­icle 130 para­graph 2 for the of­fences un­der Art­icle 130 para­graph 1 let­ter a.

3If the ad­ju­dic­a­tion an of­fence sub­ject to mil­it­ary jur­is­dic­tion is as­signed to the jur­is­dic­tion of the civil courts, an un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­a­tion may also be ordered in re­spect of of­fences un­der Art­icle 70 para­graph 2 of the Mil­it­ary Crim­in­al Pro­ced­ure Code of 23 March 197920.


1 Amended by An­nex 2 No 2 of the Fed­er­al De­cree of 18 Dec. 2015 on the Ap­prov­al and Im­ple­ment­a­tion of the In­ter­na­tion­al Con­ven­tion for the Pro­tec­tion of All Per­sons from En­forced Dis­ap­pear­ance, in force since 1 Jan. 2017 (AS 2016 4687; BBl 2014 453).
2 SR 311.0
3 Amended by An­nex No II 7 of the Crim­in­al Justice Au­thor­it­ies Act of 19 March 2010, in force since 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 3267; BBl 2008 8125).
4 SR 142.20
5 SR 211.221.31
6 Amended by No II of the FA of 16 March 2012, in force since 1 Feb. 2013 (AS 2013 295; BBl 2011 5905).
7 SR 514.51
8 SR 732.1
9 Cor­rec­tion by the Fed­er­al As­sembly Draft­ing Com­mit­tee dated 19 Sept. 2014, pub­lished on 4 Oct. 2014 (AS 2011 4487).
10 SR 812.121
11 SR 946.202
12 In­ser­ted by Art. 34 No 2 of the Sport Pro­mo­tion Act of 17 June 2012 (AS 2012 3953; BBl 2009 8189). Amended by An­nex No II 2 of the Gambling Act of 29 Sept. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2019 (AS 2018 5103; BBl 2015 8387).
13 SR 415.0
14 In­ser­ted by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 18 March 2016 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic, in force since 1 March 2018 (AS 2018 117; BBl 2013 2683).
15 SR 514.54
16 In­ser­ted by An­nex No 1 of the FD of 29 Sept. 2017 (Medicrime Con­ven­tion), in force since 1 Jan. 2019 (AS 2018 4771; BBl 2017 3135).
17 SR 812.21
18 In­ser­ted by An­nex No II 2 of the Gambling Act of 29 Sept. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2019 (AS 2018 5103; BBl 2015 8387).
19 SR 935.51
20 SR 322.1

Art. 287 Requirements for the persons deployed  

1The fol­low­ing per­sons may be de­ployed as un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­at­ors:

a.
mem­bers of a Swiss or for­eign po­lice force;
b.
per­sons em­ployed tem­por­ar­ily on po­lice du­ties even if they have not re­ceived po­lice train­ing.

2Only mem­bers of a po­lice force may be de­ployed as com­mand staff.

3If mem­bers of a for­eign po­lice force are de­ployed, they are nor­mally led by their reg­u­lar com­mand­er.

Art. 288 Cover and guarantee of anonymity  

1The po­lice shall provide un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­at­ors with a cov­er.1

2The pub­lic pro­sec­utor may guar­an­tee to un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­at­ors that their true iden­tity will not be re­vealed even if they ap­pear in court pro­ceed­ings as a per­son provid­ing in­form­a­tion or as a wit­ness.2

2It may guar­an­tee to un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­at­ors that their true iden­tity will not be dis­closed even if they ap­pear in court pro­ceed­ings as per­sons provid­ing in­form­a­tion or wit­nesses.

3If un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­at­ors com­mit an of­fence while de­ployed, the com­puls­ory meas­ures court shall de­cide on the iden­tity un­der which crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings are brought.


1 Amended by No I of the FA of 14 Dec. 2012 on Un­der­cov­er In­vest­ig­a­tions and En­quir­ies, in force since 1 May 2013 (AS 2013 1051; BBl 2012 5591 5609).
2 Amended by No I of the FA of 14 Dec. 2012 on Un­der­cov­er In­vest­ig­a­tions and En­quir­ies, in force since 1 May 2013 (AS 2013 1051; BBl 2012 5591 5609).

Art. 289 Authorisation procedure  

1The de­ploy­ment of an un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­at­or re­quires the au­thor­isa­tion of the com­puls­ory meas­ures court.

2The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall sub­mit the fol­low­ing doc­u­ments to the com­puls­ory meas­ures court with­in 24 hours of or­der­ing the un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­a­tion:

a.
the or­der;
b.
a state­ment of the reas­ons and the case doc­u­ments rel­ev­ant for au­thor­isa­tion.

3The com­puls­ory meas­ures court shall de­cide and provide a brief state­ment of the reas­ons with­in 5 days of the un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­a­tion be­ing ordered. It may grant au­thor­isa­tion sub­ject to a time lim­it or oth­er con­di­tions, or re­quest fur­ther in­form­a­tion or in­vest­ig­a­tions.

4The au­thor­isa­tion shall ex­pressly state wheth­er it is per­mit­ted:

a.
to pro­duce or al­ter of­fi­cial doc­u­ments in or­der to cre­ate or main­tain a cov­er;
b.
to guar­an­tee an­onym­ity;
c.
to de­ploy per­sons with no po­lice train­ing.

5The com­puls­ory meas­ures court shall grant au­thor­isa­tion for a max­im­um of 12 months. Au­thor­isa­tion may be ex­ten­ded on one or more oc­ca­sions for a max­im­um of 6 months at a time. If an ex­ten­sion is re­quired, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall file an ap­plic­a­tion for the ex­ten­sion, stat­ing the reas­ons there­for, be­fore ex­piry of the cur­rent au­thor­isa­tion.

6If au­thor­isa­tion is not gran­ted or no au­thor­isa­tion has been ob­tained, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall ter­min­ate de­ploy­ment im­me­di­ately. All re­cords must be des­troyed im­me­di­ately. Find­ings made by means of the un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­a­tion may not be used.

Art. 290 Briefing before deployment  

The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall brief the com­mand­ing of­ficer and the un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­at­or be­fore de­ploy­ment.

Art. 291 Commanding officer  

1Dur­ing de­ploy­ment, the un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­at­or is sub­ject to the dir­ect in­struc­tions of the com­mand­ing of­ficer. Dur­ing de­ploy­ment, any con­tact between the pub­lic pro­sec­utor and the un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­at­or shall take place ex­clus­ively via the com­mand­ing of­ficer.

2The com­mand­ing of­ficer has the fol­low­ing du­ties in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
he or she shall brief the un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­at­or in de­tail and con­tinu­ously on the as­sign­ment and powers and on how to deal with the cov­er story.
b.
he or she shall in­struct and ad­vise the un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­at­or and con­tinu­ally as­sess the risk situ­ation.
c.
he or she shall keep a writ­ten re­cord of or­al re­ports made by the un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­at­or and a full dossier on the op­er­a­tion.
d.
he or she shall in­form the pub­lic pro­sec­utor reg­u­larly and in full on the op­er­a­tion.
Art. 292 Duties of undercover investigators  

1Un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­at­ors shall carry out their op­er­a­tion in ac­cord­ance their du­ties and in line with their in­struc­tions.

2They shall re­port to their com­mand­ing of­ficer reg­u­larly and in full on their activ­it­ies and their find­ings.

Art. 293 Scope of influence permitted  

1Un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­at­ors may not gen­er­ally en­cour­age oth­ers to com­mit of­fences or in­cite per­sons already will­ing to com­mit of­fences to com­mit more ser­i­ous of­fences. They must lim­it their activ­it­ies to sub­stan­ti­at­ing an ex­ist­ing de­cision to com­mit an of­fence.

2Their activ­it­ies may only be of minor sig­ni­fic­ance in the de­cision to com­mit a spe­cif­ic of­fence.

3If re­quired in or­der to bring about the main trans­ac­tion, they may make tri­al pur­chases or provide evid­ence of their abil­ity to pay.

4If the un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­at­or ex­ceeds the re­mit of the au­thor­ised op­er­a­tion, the court must take due ac­count of this in as­sess­ing the sen­tence im­posed on the per­son sub­ject to the in­vest­ig­at­or's in­flu­ence, or may dis­pense with im­pos­ing any sen­tence.

Art. 294 Deployment in investigations under the Narcotics Act  

Un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­at­ors may not be con­victed of an of­fence un­der Art­icles 19 and 20–22 of the Nar­cot­ics Act of 3 Oc­to­ber 19511 if they are act­ing in the course of an au­thor­ised un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­a­tion.


Art. 295 Money for simulated transactions  

1At the re­quest of the pub­lic pro­sec­utor, the Con­fed­er­a­tion may provide sums of money via the Na­tion­al Bank in the re­quired amounts, forms and de­nom­in­a­tions for the pur­pose of sim­u­lated trans­ac­tions and to provide evid­ence of an abil­ity to pay.

2The re­quest must be sub­mit­ted to the Fed­er­al Of­fice of Po­lice to­geth­er with a sum­mary of the facts of the case.

3The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall take the pre­cau­tions re­quired to pro­tect the money provided. In the event of loss, the Con­fed­er­a­tion or the can­ton to which pub­lic pro­sec­utor be­longs is li­able.

Art. 296 Accidental finds  

1Where evid­ence of an of­fence oth­er than that named in the in­vest­ig­a­tion or­der comes to light in the course of an un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­a­tion, the evid­ence may be used provided the or­der­ing of a cov­ert in­vest­ig­a­tion would have been per­mit­ted in or­der to in­vest­ig­ate the of­fence newly dis­closed.

2The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall or­der an un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­a­tion im­me­di­ately and be­gin the au­thor­isa­tion pro­ced­ure.

Art. 297 Conclusion of the operation  

1The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall ter­min­ate the op­er­a­tion im­me­di­ately if:

a.
the re­quire­ments are no longer met;
b.
au­thor­isa­tion or an ex­ten­sion there­of is re­fused; or
c.
the un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­at­or or the com­mand­ing of­ficer fails to fol­low in­struc­tions or fails to carry out his or her du­ties in some oth­er way, in par­tic­u­lar by wil­fully provid­ing false in­form­a­tion to the pub­lic pro­sec­utor.

2In cases un­der para­graph 1 let­ters a and c, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall no­ti­fy the com­puls­ory meas­ures court of the ter­min­a­tion of the op­er­a­tion.

3When ter­min­at­ing an op­er­a­tion, it must be en­sured that neither the un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­at­or nor any third parties in­volved in the in­vest­ig­a­tion are ex­posed to any avoid­able risks.

Art. 298 Notice  

1The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall give no­tice to the ac­cused at the latest on con­clu­sion of the pre­lim­in­ary pro­ceed­ings that he or she has been the sub­ject of an un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­a­tion.

2No­tice may be de­ferred or dis­pensed with, sub­ject to the con­sent of the com­puls­ory meas­ures court, if:

a.
the find­ings are not used as evid­ence; and
b.
de­fer­ring or dis­pens­ing with no­tice is ne­ces­sary to pro­tect over­rid­ing pub­lic or private in­terests.

3Per­sons who have been the sub­ject of an un­der­cov­er in­vest­ig­a­tion may file an ob­jec­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 393–397. The peri­od for fil­ing the ob­jec­tion be­gins on re­ceipt of no­tice of the in­vest­ig­a­tion.

Section 5a Undercover Enquiries

Art. 298a Definition  

1In un­der­cov­er en­quir­ies, po­lice of­ficers de­ployed for short peri­ods in such a way that their true iden­tity and func­tion re­mains con­cealed at­tempt to in­vest­ig­ate felon­ies and mis­de­mean­ours and to do so enter in­to or pre­tend that they wish to enter in­to fic­ti­tious trans­ac­tions.

2Un­der­cov­er agents are not provided with a cov­er with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 285a. Their true iden­tity and func­tion is dis­closed in the case files and at hear­ings.

Art. 298b Requirements  

1The pub­lic pro­sec­utor and, dur­ing po­lice en­quir­ies, the po­lice may or­der un­der­cov­er en­quir­ies if:

a.
it is sus­pec­ted that a felony or mis­de­mean­our has been com­mit­ted; and
b.
pre­vi­ous en­quir­ies or in­vest­ig­a­tions have been un­suc­cess­ful or the en­quir­ies would oth­er­wise have little pro­spect of suc­cess or would be made dis­pro­por­tion­ately more com­plex.

2If un­der­cov­er en­quir­ies ordered by the po­lice have been car­ried out for one month, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor must ap­prove their con­tinu­ation.

Art. 298c Requirements for the persons deployed and conduct  

1Art­icle 287 ap­plies mu­tatis mutandis to the per­sons de­ployed. The de­ploy­ment of per­sons in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 287 para­graph 1 let­ter b is not per­mit­ted.

2Art­icles 291–294 ap­ply by ana­logy to the status, du­ties and ob­lig­a­tions of the un­der­cov­er agents and their com­mand­ing of­ficers.

Art. 298d Termination and notification  

1The po­lice unit or pub­lic pro­sec­utor re­spons­ible shall ter­min­ate the un­der­cov­er en­quir­ies im­me­di­ately if:

a.
the re­quire­ments there­for are no longer met;
b.
pub­lic pro­sec­utor fails to ap­prove the con­tinu­ation of en­quir­ies ordered by the po­lice; or
c.
the un­der­cov­er agent or com­mand­ing of­ficer does not fol­low in­struc­tion or fails to ful­fil his or her ob­lig­a­tions in an­oth­er way, in par­tic­u­lar by provid­ing the pub­lic pro­sec­utor with false in­form­a­tion or at­tempt­ing to in­flu­ence the tar­get per­son in an un­law­ful man­ner.

2The po­lice shall no­ti­fy the pub­lic pro­sec­utor of the ter­min­a­tion of un­der­cov­er en­quir­ies.

3When ter­min­at­ing un­der­cov­er en­quir­ies, care should be taken to en­sure that the un­der­cov­er agent is not ex­posed to any avoid­able risk.

4No­ti­fic­a­tion of un­der­cov­er en­quir­ies is gov­erned by Art­icle 298 para­graphs 1 and 3 mu­tatis mutandis.

Title 6 Preliminary Proceedings

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