Bei grossen Gesetzen wie OR und ZGB kann dies bis zu 30 Sekunden dauern

Federal Act
on International Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters
(Mutual Assistance Act, IMAC)

The Federal Assembly of the Swiss Confederation,

based on Articles 54 paragraph 1, 123 paragraph 1 and 173 paragraph 2 of the Federal Constitution1,2
and having considered the Dispatch of the Federal Council of 8 March 19763,

decrees:

1 SR 101

2 Amended by No I of the FA of 18 Dec. 2020, in force since 1 June 2021 (AS 2021 233; BBl 2019 7413). 351.1

3 BBl 1976 II 444

Part One General Provisions

Chapter 1 Scope of Application

Section 1 Subject and Limits of Cooperation

Art. 1 Subject matter  

1 Un­less oth­er fed­er­al acts or in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments provide oth­er­wise, this Act shall gov­ern all pro­ced­ures of in­ter­na­tion­al co­oper­a­tion in crim­in­al mat­ters, and in par­tic­u­lar:4

a.
the ex­tra­di­tion of per­sons who are the sub­ject of crim­in­al pro­sec­u­tion or have been con­victed (Part Two);
b.
as­sist­ance aimed at sup­port­ing crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings abroad (Part Three);
c.
the trans­fer of pro­ceed­ings and pun­ish­ment of of­fences (Part Four);
d.
the ex­e­cu­tion of for­eign crim­in­al judg­ments (Part Five).

25

3 This Act ap­plies only to crim­in­al mat­ters in which re­course to the courts is per­mit­ted un­der the law of the re­quest­ing State.

3bis Un­less oth­er le­gis­la­tion or in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments provide oth­er­wise, this Act ap­plies by ana­logy to pro­ceed­ings for co­oper­a­tion in crim­in­al mat­ters with in­ter­na­tion­al courts or oth­er inter- or supra­na­tion­al bod­ies with crim­in­al justice func­tions if the pro­ceed­ings re­late to:

a.
of­fences un­der the Twelfth Titlebis, Twelfth Titleter or Twelfth Titlequater of the Swiss Crim­in­al Code6; or
b.
of­fences un­der oth­er pro­vi­sions of the crim­in­al law and the court or the body con­cerned is es­tab­lished by a res­ol­u­tion of the United Na­tions that is bind­ing on or sup­por­ted by Switzer­land.7

3ter The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may also stip­u­late in an or­din­ance that this Act ap­plies by ana­logy to pro­ced­ures for co­oper­a­tion on crim­in­al mat­ters with oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al courts or oth­er inter- or supra­na­tion­al bod­ies with crim­in­al justice func­tions if:

a.
the court or body is es­tab­lished on the basis of leg­al pro­vi­sions that clearly define the powers of court or body in terms of crim­in­al law and crim­in­al pro­ced­ure;
b.
the pro­ced­ure be­fore the court or body guar­an­tees com­pli­ance with the prin­ciples of the rule of law; and
c.
co­oper­a­tion serves to safe­guard Switzer­land’s in­terests.8

4 This Act con­fers no right to co­oper­a­tion in crim­in­al mat­ters.9

4 Amended by Art. 59 No 1 of the FA of 22 June 2001 on Co­oper­a­tion with the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­in­al Court, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2002 (AS 2002 1493; BBl 2001 391).

5 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, with ef­fect from 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997 114; BBl 1995 III 1).

6 SR 311.0

7 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 18 Dec. 2020, in force since 1 June 2021 (AS 2021 233; BBl 2019 7413).

8 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 18 Dec. 2020, in force since 1 June 2021 (AS 2021 233; BBl 2019 7413).

9 Amended by No I of the FA of 18 Dec. 2020, in force since 1 June 2021 (AS 2021 233; BBl 2019 7413).

Art. 1a Limitation of cooperation 10  

In the ap­plic­a­tion of this Act, Swiss sov­er­eignty, se­cur­ity, pub­lic or­der or sim­il­ar es­sen­tial in­terests must be taken in­to ac­count.

10 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997 114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Section 2 Inadmissibility of Requests

Art. 2 Foreign proceedings 11  

A re­quest for co­oper­a­tion in crim­in­al mat­ters shall not be gran­ted if there are reas­ons to be­lieve that the for­eign pro­ceed­ings:

a.12
do not meet the pro­ced­ur­al re­quire­ments of the European Con­ven­tion for the Pro­tec­tion of Hu­man Rights and Fun­da­ment­al Freedoms of 4 Novem­ber 195013, or the In­ter­na­tion­al Cov­en­ant on Civil and Polit­ic­al Rights of 16 Decem­ber 196614;
b.15
are be­ing con­duc­ted so as to pro­sec­ute or pun­ish a per­son on ac­count of his polit­ic­al opin­ions, his be­long­ing to a cer­tain so­cial group, his race, re­li­gion, or na­tion­al­ity;
c.
could res­ult in ag­grav­at­ing the situ­ation of the de­fend­ant for any of the reas­ons men­tioned un­der let­ter b; or
d.
have oth­er ser­i­ous de­fects.

11 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997 114; BBl 1995 III 1).

12 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997 114; BBl 1995 III 1).

13 SR 0.101

14 SR 0.103.2

15 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997 114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 3 Nature of the offence  

1 A re­quest shall not be gran­ted if the sub­ject of the pro­ceed­ings is an act which, in the Swiss view, is of a pre­dom­in­antly polit­ic­al nature, con­sti­tutes a vi­ol­a­tion of the ob­lig­a­tion to per­form mil­it­ary or sim­il­ar ser­vice, or ap­pears to be dir­ec­ted against the na­tion­al se­cur­ity or mil­it­ary de­fence of the re­quest­ing State.

2 The plea that an act is of a polit­ic­al nature shall not be taken in­to ac­count un­der any cir­cum­stances:

a.
in cases of gen­o­cide;
b.
in cases of crimes against hu­man­ity;
c.
in cases of war crimes; or
d.
if the act ap­pears par­tic­u­larly rep­re­hens­ible be­cause the of­fend­er, for the pur­pose of ex­tor­tion or duress, has en­dangered or threatened to en­danger the life or limb of per­sons, es­pe­cially by hi­jack­ing air­craft, us­ing means of mass ex­term­in­a­tion, caus­ing a cata­strophe or tak­ing host­ages.16

3 A re­quest shall not be gran­ted if the sub­ject of the pro­ceed­ings is an of­fence which ap­pears to be aimed at re­du­cing fisc­al du­ties or taxes or which vi­ol­ates reg­u­la­tions on cur­rency, trade or eco­nom­ic meas­ures. However, a re­quest may be gran­ted:

a.
for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance un­der Part Three of this Act if duty or tax fraud is the sub­ject of the pro­ceed­ings;
b.
un­der any part of this Act if ag­grav­ated duty or tax fraud as defined in Art­icle 14 para­graph 4 of the Fed­er­al Act of 22 March 197417 on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Crim­in­al Law is the sub­ject of the pro­ceed­ings.18

16Amended by No I 4 of the FA of 18 June 2010 on the Amend­ment of the Fed­er­al Le­gis­la­tion in Im­ple­ment­a­tion of the Rome Stat­ute of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­in­al Court, in force since 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 4963; BBl 2008 3863).

17 SR 313.0. Presently «art. 14 para. 3».

18 Second para­graph amended by No I 3 of the FA of 3 Oct. 2008 on the Im­ple­ment­a­tion of the Re­vised Re­com­mend­a­tions of the Fin­an­cial Ac­tion Task Force, in force since 1 Feb. 2009 (AS 2009 361367; BBl 2007 6269)

Art. 4 Minor cases 19  

A re­quest shall be re­jec­ted if the im­port­ance of the of­fence does not jus­ti­fy con­duct­ing pro­ceed­ings.

19 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997 114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 5 Extinction of the right to prosecute  

1 A re­quest shall not be gran­ted if:20

a.21
in Switzer­land or in the State where the of­fence was com­mit­ted, the court
1.
has ac­quit­ted the de­fend­ant or aban­doned the pro­ceed­ings for ma­ter­i­al reas­ons, or
2.
has per­man­ently or pro­vi­sion­ally dis­pensed with im­pos­ing a sen­tence;
b.22
the sen­tence was ex­ecuted or can­not be ex­ecuted un­der the laws of the State where sen­tence was passed;
c.23
its ex­e­cu­tion re­quires com­puls­ory meas­ures and the pro­sec­u­tion or ex­e­cu­tion of the sen­tence was ab­so­lutely time barred un­der Swiss law.

2 Para­graph 1 let­ters a and b do not ap­ply if the re­quest­ing State claims that there are grounds for a re­view of the fi­nal sen­tence with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 410 of the Crim­in­al Pro­ced­ure Code of 5 Oc­to­ber 200724 (Crim­PC).25

20 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997 114; BBl 1995 III 1).

21 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997 114; BBl 1995 III 1).

22 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997 114; BBl 1995 III 1).

23 The amend­ment in ac­cord­ance with Art. 97 ff. of the Swiss Crim­in­al Code (SR 311.0) con­tains a new sys­tem of time lim­its (AS 2006 3459; BBl 1999 1979).

24 SR 312.0

25Amended by An­nex 1 No II 13 of the Crim­in­al Pro­ced­ure Code of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 1881; BBl 2006 1085).

Art. 6 Concurrence of inadmissibility and admissibility of cooperation  

1 If the act of which the de­fend­ant is ac­cused con­sti­tutes an of­fence un­der two or more pro­vi­sions of Swiss crim­in­al law, the re­quest may be gran­ted only in re­spect of those of­fences for which there are no reas­ons for in­ad­miss­ib­il­ity and if there is a guar­an­tee that the re­quest­ing State will re­spect the con­di­tions im­posed.

2 Co­oper­a­tion shall not be per­mit­ted if the pro­ceed­ings con­cern an act that con­sti­tutes an of­fence un­der two or more pro­vi­sions of Swiss or for­eign crim­in­al law and if, with re­gard to one of these of­fences, which cov­ers the act in all its as­pects, a re­quest may not be gran­ted.

Section 3 Special Provisions

Art. 7 Swiss nationals  

1 No Swiss na­tion­al may, without his writ­ten con­sent, be ex­tra­dited or sur­rendered to a for­eign State for pro­sec­u­tion or for the ex­e­cu­tion of a sen­tence. Con­sent may be with­drawn up to the time when the sur­render is ordered.

2 Para­graph 1 does not ap­ply to trans­it or re­turn of a Swiss na­tion­al who is tem­por­ar­ily sur­rendered by a third State to the Swiss au­thor­it­ies.

Art. 8 Reciprocity  

1 As a rule, a re­quest shall be gran­ted only if the re­quest­ing State guar­an­tees re­cipro­city. The Fed­er­al Of­fice of Justice (FOJ)26 shall ob­tain a guar­an­tee of re­cipro­city if this is con­sidered ne­ces­sary.

2 Re­cipro­city is in par­tic­u­lar not re­quired for the ser­vice of doc­u­ments or if the ex­e­cu­tion of a re­quest:

a.
seems ad­vis­able due to the type of of­fence or to the ne­ces­sity of com­bat­ing cer­tain of­fences;
b.27
is likely to im­prove the situ­ation of the de­fend­ant or the pro­spects of his so­cial re­hab­il­it­a­tion; or
c.
serves to cla­ri­fy an of­fence against a Swiss na­tion­al.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may, with­in the scope of this Act, provide oth­er States with a guar­an­tee of re­cipro­city.

26 Name in ac­cord­ance with An­nex 1 No 11 of the FA of 17 June 2022, in force since 1 Jan. 2024 (AS 2023 468; BBl 2019 6697). This amend­ment has been made in the pro­vi­sions spe­cified in the AS.

27 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997 114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 8a Bilateral treaties 28  

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may con­clude bi­lat­er­al agree­ments with for­eign States re­gard­ing the trans­fer of sen­tenced per­sons provided those agree­ments re­spect the prin­ciples of the European Con­ven­tion of 21 March 198329 on the Trans­fer of Sen­tenced Per­sons.

28 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 21 June 2002, in force since 1 Nov. 2002 (AS 2002 3333; BBl 2001 4687)

29 SR 0.343

Art. 9 Protection of privacy  

In the ex­e­cu­tion of re­quests, pro­tec­tion of pri­vacy shall be gov­erned by the pro­vi­sions on the right of wit­nesses to re­fuse to testi­fy. Art­icles 246–248 Crim­PC30 ap­ply by ana­logy to the search and to the pla­cing un­der seal of doc­u­ments.31

30 SR 312.0

31 Second sen­tence Amended by An­nex 1 No II 13 of the Crim­in­al Pro­ced­ure Code of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 1881; BBl 2006 1085).

Art. 1032  

32 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, with ef­fect from 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997 114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 11 Legal definitions  

1 A de­fend­ant un­der this Act is any per­son un­der sus­pi­cion, sub­ject to crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings or on whom a sen­tence has been im­posed.33

2 A sen­tence is any pen­alty or oth­er meas­ure.

33 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Chapter 1a Personal Data, File and Process Management System34

34 Inserted by Annex 1 No 7 of the FA of 13 June 2008 on the Federal Police Information Systems, in force since 5 Dec. 2008 (AS 2008 4989; BBl 2006 5061).

Art. 11a  

1 The FOJ shall run a per­son­al data, file and pro­cess man­age­ment sys­tem that may con­tain sens­it­ive per­son­al data ob­tained through forms of co­oper­a­tion gov­erned by this Act. This data may be pro­cessed in or­der to:

a.
identi­fy wheth­er data on a par­tic­u­lar per­son is be­ing pro­cessed;
b.
pro­cess data on pro­cesses;
c.
or­gan­ise work pro­ced­ures ra­tion­ally and ef­fi­ciently;
d.
con­duct a pro­cess check;
e.
com­pile stat­ist­ics.

2 In or­der to com­ply with the pro­cessing pur­poses men­tioned in para­graph 1, the sys­tem shall con­tain:

a.
per­son­al de­tails of per­sons on whom data is be­ing pro­cessed;
b.
data ne­ces­sary for the loc­al­isa­tion and prop­er ad­min­is­tra­tion of the dossier;
c.
doc­u­ments on elec­tron­ic­ally stored pro­cesses and entries.

3 The Fed­er­al Of­fice of Po­lice and the State Sec­ret­ari­at for Mi­gra­tion35 and the units of the Fed­er­al In­tel­li­gence Ser­vice re­spons­ible for the im­ple­ment­a­tion of the Fed­er­al Act of 21 March 199736 on Meas­ures to Safe­guard In­tern­al Se­cur­ity shall have on­line ac­cess to the data defined in para­graph 2 let­ter a.37 If the Fed­er­al Of­fice of Po­lice car­ries out the tasks of the FOJ un­der this Act, it shall also have on­line ac­cess to the data defined in para­graph 2 let­ter b.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify the de­tails, and in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
in the case of the re­cord­ing of data in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 let­ters a and b, data on the ju­di­cial au­thor­it­ies in­volved in the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings and data on the of­fences giv­ing rise to the re­quest for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance;
b.
the peri­od of time that the data is kept and the archiv­ing of the data;
c.
the agen­cies of the FOJ that are au­thor­ised to pro­cess the data dir­ectly in the sys­tem and the data that in in­di­vidu­al cases may be dis­closed to oth­er au­thor­it­ies.

35 The name of this ad­min­is­trat­ive unit was amended by Art. 16 para. 2 of the Pub­lic­a­tions O of 17 Nov. 2004 (AS 20044937), in force since 1 Jan. 2015.

36 SR 120

37 Amended by No I 4 of the O of 4 Dec. 2009 on the Amend­ment of Le­gis­la­tion due to the Es­tab­lish­ment of the Fed­er­al In­tel­li­gence Ser­vice, in force since 1 Jan. 2010 (AS 2009 6921).

Chapter 1b Protection of Personal Data38

38 Inserted by No II 4 of the FA of 28 Sept. 2018 on the Implementation of Directive (EU) 2016/680 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, in force since 1 March 2019 (AS 2019 625; BBl 2017 6941).

Art. 11b Right to information in pending proceedings  

1 Where mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings are pending, the per­son who is the ob­ject of a re­quest for in­ter­na­tion­al co­oper­a­tion in crim­in­al mat­ters shall be al­lowed ac­cess to the per­son­al data re­lated to them and the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion:

a.
the pur­pose of and leg­al basis for the data pro­cessing;
b.
the peri­od that the per­son­al data will be re­tained or, if this is not pos­sible, the cri­ter­ia for de­term­in­ing this peri­od;
c.
the re­cip­i­ents or the cat­egor­ies of re­cip­i­ents;
d.
the avail­able in­form­a­tion on the ori­gin of the per­son­al data;
e.
the in­form­a­tion that they re­quire to be able to as­sert their rights.

2 The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity may re­fuse to provide the in­form­a­tion, lim­it the in­form­a­tion provided or de­fer pro­vi­sion of the in­form­a­tion if there are grounds for do­ing so un­der Art­icle 80b para­graph 2 or if:

a.
it is ne­ces­sary be­cause of over­rid­ing in­terests of third parties;
b.
it is ne­ces­sary be­cause of over­rid­ing pub­lic in­terests, in par­tic­u­lar re­lat­ing to the in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity of Switzer­land; or
c.
an en­quiry, an in­vest­ig­a­tion, court pro­ceed­ings or in­ter­na­tion­al co­oper­a­tion pro­ceed­ings in crim­in­al mat­ters may be pre­ju­diced by provid­ing the per­son con­cerned with in­form­a­tion.
Art. 11c Restriction of the right to information in relation to requests for arrest for the purpose of extradition  

1 Any per­son may re­quest in­form­a­tion on wheth­er Switzer­land has re­ceived a re­quest from a for­eign state to make an ar­rest for the pur­pose of ex­tra­di­tion. This right may be as­ser­ted at the FOJ. If the re­quest is made to a dif­fer­ent au­thor­ity, that au­thor­ity shall for­ward the re­quest im­me­di­ately to the FOJ.

2 If a per­son re­quests in­form­a­tion on wheth­er the FOJ has re­ceived a re­quest to make an ar­rest for the pur­pose of ex­tra­di­tion, the FOJ shall no­ti­fy the per­son that no data about them has been un­law­fully pro­cessed and that the per­son can re­quest the Fed­er­al Data Pro­tec­tion and In­form­a­tion Com­mis­sion­er (the FD­PIC) to en­quire as to wheth­er any data on them has been law­fully pro­cessed.39

3 The FD­PIC shall con­duct the en­quir­ies; he shall no­ti­fy the per­son con­cerned either that no data about them has been un­law­fully pro­cessed or that he has opened an in­vest­ig­a­tion un­der Art­icle 49 of the Data Pro­tec­tion Act of 25 Septem­ber 202040 in the case of er­rors in the pro­cessing of per­son­al data.41

4 If the FD­PIC iden­ti­fies er­rors in the data pro­cessing, he shall or­der the FOJ to rec­ti­fy the same.42

5 The no­ti­fic­a­tions un­der para­graphs 2 and 3 shall al­ways be worded in the same way and shall not men­tion the grounds.

6 The no­ti­fic­a­tion un­der para­graph 3 may not be con­tested.

7 In derog­a­tion from para­graph 2, the FOJ is en­titled to provide the per­son con­cerned with the re­ques­ted in­form­a­tion if the re­quest­ing state gives its ad­vance con­sent.

39 Amended by An­nex 1 No II 29 of the Data Pro­tec­tion Act of 25 Sept. 2020, in force since 1 Sept. 2023 (AS 2022 491; BBl 2017 6941).

40 SR 235.1

41 Amended by An­nex 1 No II 29 of the Data Pro­tec­tion Act of 25 Sept. 2020, in force since 1 Sept. 2023 (AS 2022 491; BBl 2017 6941).

42 Amended by An­nex 1 No II 29 of the Data Pro­tec­tion Act of 25 Sept. 2020, in force since 1 Sept. 2023 (AS 2022 491; BBl 2017 6941).

Art. 11d Right to have personal data corrected or deleted  

1 The per­son who is the ob­ject of a re­quest for in­ter­na­tion­al co­oper­a­tion in crim­in­al mat­ters may re­quest that the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity cor­rect or de­lete the per­son­al data re­lat­ing to them that is be­ing pro­cessed in con­tra­ven­tion of this Act.

2 In­stead of de­let­ing the per­son­al data, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall re­strict the pro­cessing if:

a.
the data sub­ject dis­putes the ac­cur­acy of the per­son­al data but it can­not be es­tab­lished wheth­er the data is cor­rect or in­cor­rect;
b.
over­rid­ing in­terests, in par­tic­u­lar those set out in Art­icle 80b para­graph 2, so re­quire; or
c.
de­le­tion may pre­ju­dice pro­ceed­ings on in­ter­na­tion­al co­oper­a­tion in crim­in­al mat­ters or for­eign pro­ceed­ings giv­ing rise to the re­quest for co­oper­a­tion in crim­in­al mat­ters.

3 The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall im­me­di­ately no­ti­fy the au­thor­ity that has trans­mit­ted, made avail­able or dis­closed the per­son­al data about the meas­ures taken in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 or 2.

4 The rel­ev­ant for­eign au­thor­ity is re­spons­ible for check­ing the ac­cur­acy of per­son­al data that has been ob­tained as evid­ence or per­son­al data re­lat­ing to crim­in­al of­fences giv­ing rise to the re­quest for in­ter­na­tion­al co­oper­a­tion in crim­in­al mat­ters.

Art. 11e Equal treatment  

1 The data pro­tec­tion rules that ap­ply to the dis­clos­ure of per­son­al data to the com­pet­ent au­thor­it­ies of States that are linked with Switzer­land through one of the Schen­gen as­so­ci­ation agree­ments (the Schen­gen States) must not be stricter than the rules that ap­ply to the dis­clos­ure of per­son­al data to Swiss law en­force­ment au­thor­it­ies.

2 Spe­cif­ic le­gis­la­tion that provides for stricter data pro­tec­tion rules for the dis­clos­ure of per­son­al data to the com­pet­ent for­eign au­thor­it­ies does not ap­ply to dis­clos­ure to the com­pet­ent au­thor­it­ies of the Schen­gen States.

Art. 11f Disclosure of personal data to a third country or an international body  

1 Per­son­al data may not be dis­closed to the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity of a State that is not linked with Switzer­land through one of the Schen­gen as­so­ci­ation agree­ments (a third coun­try) or to an in­ter­na­tion­al body if, as a res­ult, the pri­vacy of the data sub­ject would be ser­i­ously jeop­ard­ised, in par­tic­u­lar be­cause of the lack of ad­equate pro­tec­tion.

2 Ad­equate pro­tec­tion is guar­an­teed by:

a.
the le­gis­la­tion of the third coun­try, provided the European Uni­on has con­firmed this in a de­cision;
b.
an in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment;
c.
spe­cif­ic guar­an­tees.

3 In derog­a­tion from para­graph 1, per­son­al data may be dis­closed to the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity of a third coun­try or to an in­ter­na­tion­al body if dis­clos­ure is ne­ces­sary in the case in ques­tion:

a.
to pro­tect the life or phys­ic­al in­teg­rity of the data sub­ject or a third party;
b.
to pre­vent an im­min­ent and ser­i­ous threat to the pub­lic se­cur­ity of a Schen­gen State or of a third coun­try;
c.
to pre­vent, de­tect or pro­sec­ute a crim­in­al of­fence or to ex­ecute a crim­in­al judg­ment, un­less over­rid­ing le­git­im­ate in­terests of the data sub­ject pre­clude dis­clos­ure;
d.
to ex­er­cise or en­force leg­al rights against an au­thor­ity com­pet­ent to pre­vent, de­tect or pro­sec­ute a crim­in­al of­fence or to ex­ecute a crim­in­al judg­ment, un­less over­rid­ing le­git­im­ate in­terests of the data sub­ject pre­clude dis­clos­ure.
Art. 11g Disclosure of personal data by a Schengen State to a third country or an international body  

1 Per­son­al data that are trans­mit­ted or made avail­able by a Schen­gen State may be dis­closed to the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity of a third coun­try or to an in­ter­na­tion­al body if:

a.
dis­clos­ure is re­quired to pre­vent, de­tect or pro­sec­ute a crim­in­al of­fence or to ex­ecute a crim­in­al judg­ment;
b.
the Schen­gen State that trans­mit­ted or made avail­able the per­son­al data has giv­en pri­or con­sent to dis­clos­ure; and
c.
the re­quire­ments of Art­icle 11f are met.

2 In derog­a­tion from para­graph 1 let­ter b, per­son­al data may be dis­closed in an in­di­vidu­al case if:

a.
the pri­or con­sent of the Schen­gen State can­not be ob­tained in time; and
b.
dis­clos­ure is ne­ces­sary to pre­vent an im­min­ent and ser­i­ous threat to the pub­lic se­cur­ity of a Schen­gen State or of a third coun­try or to pro­tect the es­sen­tial in­terests of a Schen­gen State.

3 The Schen­gen State shall be no­ti­fied im­me­di­ately of any dis­clos­ure un­der para­graph 2.

Art. 11h Procedure for the disclosure of personal data  

1 The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall no­ti­fy the re­cip­i­ent about the re­li­ab­il­ity of the per­son­al data dis­closed and of the ex­tent to which they are up to date.

2 It shall also dis­close any ad­di­tion­al in­form­a­tion to the re­cip­i­ent that may as far as pos­sible be used to dis­tin­guish:

a.
between the vari­ous cat­egor­ies of data sub­jects;
b.
between per­son­al data based on facts and per­son­al data based on per­son­al as­sess­ments.

3 The ob­lig­a­tion to no­ti­fy the re­cip­i­ent does not ap­ply if the in­form­a­tion men­tioned in para­graphs 1 and 2 is evid­ent from the per­son­al data them­selves or from the cir­cum­stances.

Chapter 2 Applicable Law

Art. 12 General  

1 Un­less this Act spe­cifies oth­er­wise, the fed­er­al ad­min­is­trat­ive au­thor­it­ies shall ap­ply, by ana­logy, the Fed­er­al Act of 20 Decem­ber 196843 on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Pro­ced­ure, and the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies their own pro­ced­ur­al rules. Pro­ced­ur­al acts are gov­erned by the pro­ced­ur­al law in crim­in­al mat­ters.

2 The can­ton­al and fed­er­al pro­vi­sions on the sus­pen­sion of time lim­its do not ap­ply.44

43SR 172.021

44 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 13 Suspension of limitation periods . Filing a criminal complaint 45  

1 In pro­ceed­ings un­der this Act, the fol­low­ing shall be con­sidered to have ef­fect in Switzer­land:

a.
the sus­pen­sion of a lim­it­a­tion peri­od un­der the law of the re­quest­ing State;
b.
the fil­ing of a crim­in­al com­plaint with a for­eign au­thor­ity with­in the time lim­it provided for if this is so re­quired un­der Swiss law.

2 If a crim­in­al com­plaint is re­quired only un­der Swiss law, no sen­tence may be im­posed or ex­ecuted in Switzer­land if the vic­tim makes ob­jec­tions.

45 The sus­pen­sion of the ef­fects of the time lim­it­a­tion pro­vi­sions has been ab­ol­ished by Art. 97 ff. of the Swiss Crim­in­al Code (SR 311.0) and time lim­its for ex­e­cu­tion have been re­placed by an ex­ten­sion of the reg­u­lar time lim­it (AS 20063459; BBl 19991979).

Art. 14 Taking account of the period in detention  

Art­icle 69 of the Swiss Crim­in­al Code46 ap­plies when tak­ing ac­count of the peri­od spent on re­mand or in de­ten­tion abroad due to pro­ceed­ings un­der this Act.

46 SR 311.0. See now art. 51.

Art. 15 Compensation  

1 Art­icles 429 and 431 Crim­PC47 ap­ply by ana­logy in pro­ceed­ings that have been con­duc­ted against the de­fend­ant un­der this Act in Switzer­land or at the in­stig­a­tion of a Swiss au­thor­ity abroad.48

2 The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall pay the com­pens­a­tion if a fed­er­al au­thor­ity makes or ex­ecutes a re­quest. It may re­quire re­im­burse­ment from the can­ton that caused the re­quest to be made.

3 The com­pens­a­tion may be re­duced or re­fused if the de­fend­ant has pro­voked the in­vest­ig­a­tion or the de­ten­tion through his fault, or has, without reas­on, ob­struc­ted or delayed the pro­ceed­ings.49

4 Com­pens­a­tion for de­ten­tion pending ex­tra­di­tion served in Switzer­land may also be re­duced or re­fused if the re­quest­ing State:

a.
with­draws the re­quest for search and ar­rest with a view to ex­tra­di­tion; or
b.
does not present the re­quest for ex­tra­di­tion with the ne­ces­sary en­clos­ures with­in the dead­line set.50

5 The like­li­hood of the in­jured party be­ing able to ob­tain dam­ages in the for­eign State must be taken in­to ac­count when the de­cision is made to re­duce or re­fuse the com­pens­a­tion.51

47 SR 312.0

48 Amended by An­nex 1 No II 13 of the Crim­in­al Pro­ced­ure Code of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 1881; BBl 2006 1085).

49 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

50 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

51 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Chapter 3 Domestic Procedure

Section 1 Authorities and Powers

Art. 16 Cantonal authorities  

1 The can­tons shall par­ti­cip­ate in the con­duct of ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings. Un­less fed­er­al law provides oth­er­wise, they are re­quired to ex­ecute the re­quests for oth­er forms of mu­tu­al as­sist­ance and the trans­fer of pro­ceed­ings and to ex­ecute crim­in­al judg­ments. The can­tons shall be sub­ject to the su­per­vi­sion of the Con­fed­er­a­tion provided this Act ap­plies.

252

52 Re­pealed by An­nex 1 No II 13 of the Crim­in­al Pro­ced­ure Code of 5 Oct. 2007, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 1881; BBl 2006 1085).

Art. 17 Federal authorities  

1 The Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Justice and Po­lice (the De­part­ment) shall de­cide on cases un­der Art­icle 1 let­ter a.53 The de­cision of the De­part­ment may be re­ques­ted with­in 30 days of re­ceiv­ing writ­ten no­ti­fic­a­tion of the fi­nal rul­ing.54

2 The FOJ shall re­ceive the re­quests from abroad and file Swiss re­quests. It shall handle ex­tra­di­tion re­quests and ar­range for re­quests for oth­er as­sist­ance, trans­fer of pro­ceed­ings and ex­e­cu­tion of crim­in­al judg­ments to be ex­amined by the ap­pro­pri­ate can­ton­al or fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies if their ex­e­cu­tion is not ob­vi­ously in­ad­miss­ible.

3 It shall de­cide:

a.
wheth­er to re­quire a guar­an­tee of re­cipro­city (Art. 8 para. 1);
b.
on the ap­pro­pri­ate pro­ced­ure (Art. 19);
c.
on the ad­miss­ib­il­ity of Swiss re­quests (Art. 30, para. 1).

4 It may trans­fer the con­duct of pro­ceed­ings wholly or partly to the fed­er­al au­thor­ity which would be com­pet­ent to pro­sec­ute the of­fence if it had been com­mit­ted in Switzer­land.

5 It may also de­cide on the ad­miss­ib­il­ity of as­sist­ance and al­low its ex­e­cu­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 79 let­ter a.55

53 Amended by No 1 of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

54 Sen­tence in­ser­ted by An­nex No 30 of the FA of 17 June 2005 on the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court, in force since 1 Jan. 2007 (AS 2006 2197; BBl 2001 4202).

55 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 17a Obligation of promptness 56  

1 The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall ex­ecute re­quests promptly. It shall de­cide without delay.

2 It shall on re­quest provide the FOJ with in­form­a­tion on the status of the pro­ceed­ings, the reas­ons for any delay and the meas­ures be­ing con­sidered. If the delay is not jus­ti­fied, the FOJ may take the mat­ter up with the ap­pro­pri­ate su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity.

3 When the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity, without reas­on, re­fuses to or delays in is­su­ing a rul­ing, its con­duct shall be re­garded as equi­val­ent to a neg­at­ive de­cision sub­ject to ap­peal.

56 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 18 Provisional measures 57  

1 At the ex­press re­quest of an­oth­er State, pro­vi­sion­al meas­ures may be taken by the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity to pre­serve the ex­ist­ing situ­ation, to safe­guard threatened leg­al in­terests or to pro­tect jeop­ard­ised evid­ence un­less the pro­ceed­ings un­der this Act clearly ap­pear to be in­ad­miss­ible or in­ap­pro­pri­ate.

2 If any delay would jeop­ard­ise the pro­ceed­ings and if there is suf­fi­cient in­form­a­tion to de­term­ine wheth­er all the con­di­tions are met, the FOJ may like­wise or­der pro­vi­sion­al meas­ures as soon as a re­quest is an­nounced. Such meas­ures shall be re­voked if the for­eign State does not make the re­quest with­in the dead­line set.

3 Ap­peals filed against rul­ings based on this Art­icle do not have sus­pens­ive ef­fect.

57 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 18a Surveillance of postal and telecommunications traffic 58  

1 In ex­tra­di­tion cases, the FOJ may, at the ex­press re­quest of an­oth­er State or­der the sur­veil­lance of postal and tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions traffic in or­der to es­tab­lish the where­abouts of the de­fend­ant.

2 In oth­er mu­tu­al as­sist­ance cases, the fol­low­ing au­thor­it­ies may or­der the sur­veil­lance of postal and tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions traffic:

a.
the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Switzer­land or of the Can­ton­al Pub­lic Pro­sec­utor;
b.
the FOJ, if it is ex­ecut­ing the re­quest for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance it­self.

3 The sur­veil­lance or­der must be sub­mit­ted to the fol­low­ing au­thor­it­ies for ap­prov­al:

a.
by the fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies: the fed­er­al com­puls­ory meas­ures court;
b.
by the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies: the can­ton­al com­puls­ory meas­ures court.

4 The re­quire­ments for sur­veil­lance and the pro­ced­ure shall oth­er­wise be gov­erned by Art­icles 269–279 Crim­PC59 and the Fed­er­al Act of 6 Oc­to­ber 200060 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic.

58 In­ser­ted by An­nex No 4 of the FA of 6 Oct. 2000 on the Sur­veil­lance of Mail and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tion Ser­vices (AS 2001 3096; BBl 1998 4241). Amended by An­nex 1 No II 13 of the Crim­in­al Pro­ced­ure Code of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 1881; BBl 2006 1085).

59 SR 312.0

60 [AS 2001 3096; 2003 2133an­nex No 18, 3043No I 2; 2004 2149, 3693; 2006 2197an­nex No 84, 5437Art. 2 No 3; 2007 921an­nex No 3, 5437an­nex No II 7; 2010 1881an­nex 1 No II 26, 3267an­nex II 14; 2012 3745an­nex No 7; 2017 4095an­nex No II 12.AS 2018 117]. See now the FA of 18 March 2016 (SR 780.1).

Art. 18b Electronic communications traffic data 61  

1 The fed­er­al or can­ton­al au­thor­ity deal­ing with a re­quest for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance may or­der the trans­mis­sion of elec­tron­ic com­mu­nic­a­tions traffic data to an­oth­er State be­fore con­clu­sion of the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings if:

a.
pro­vi­sion­al meas­ures in­dic­ate that the com­mu­nic­a­tion that is the sub­ject of the re­quest ori­gin­ated abroad; or
b.
the data was ac­quired by the ex­ecut­ing au­thor­ity based on an or­der for au­thor­ised real-time sur­veil­lance (Art. 269–281 Crim­PC62).

2 The data may not be used in evid­ence be­fore the rul­ing on grant­ing and the ex­tent of mu­tu­al as­sist­ance is leg­ally bind­ing.

3 No­tice of the rul­ing un­der para­graph 1 and any or­der or au­thor­isa­tion for sur­veil­lance must be giv­en to the FOJ im­me­di­ately.

61 In­ser­ted by Art. 2 No 2 of the FD of 18 March 2011 (Coun­cil of Europe Con­ven­tion on Cy­ber­crime), in force since 1 Jan. 2012 (AS 2011 6293; BBl 2010 4697).

62 SR 312.0

Art. 19 Choice of procedure  

If the de­fend­ant is abroad and if, ac­cord­ing to the laws of the State to which the re­quest is to be made, there is a choice between dif­fer­ent pro­ced­ures, pref­er­ence shall be giv­en to the pro­ced­ure which ap­pears to en­sure the bet­ter so­cial re­hab­il­it­a­tion.

Art. 20 Suspension of criminal proceedings or of the execution of a penalty  

1 At the re­quest of the FOJ, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity may tem­por­ar­ily sus­pend crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings or the ex­e­cu­tion of a sen­tence against a de­fend­ant abroad for an­oth­er of­fence if:

a.
the sen­tence im­posed in Switzer­land is not of great im­port­ance in com­par­is­on to the one likely to be im­posed abroad; or
b.
ex­e­cu­tion of the sen­tence in Switzer­land does not seem ap­pro­pri­ate.

2 On con­clu­sion of the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings abroad, the Swiss au­thor­ity shall de­cide wheth­er or not to re­sume the sus­pen­ded pro­ceed­ings or the ex­e­cu­tion of the pen­alty.

Art. 20a Transit 63  

1 In the in­terest of pro­ceed­ings car­ried out in an­oth­er State and per­mit­ted un­der this Act, the FOJ may per­mit trans­it through Swiss ter­rit­ory and ap­prove the meas­ures re­quired there­for on sub­mis­sion of a re­quest by the State con­cerned or a third State without hear­ing the per­son con­cerned. There is no right of ap­peal against the de­cision and an­cil­lary meas­ures. They shall be no­ti­fied only to the re­quest­ing State.

2 No ap­prov­al shall be re­quired if the de­tained per­son is to be trans­por­ted by air­craft over Swiss ter­rit­ory without a stop­over land­ing. In the event of an un­sched­uled stop­over land­ing, the de­tained per­son may be kept in cus­tody only if:

a.
the re­quire­ments for his ar­rest un­der Art­icle 44 are met; or
b.
the State ar­ran­ging for the trans­port to be made has pre­vi­ously in­formed the FOJ by in­dic­at­ing the reas­on for sur­render and the of­fence which is the basis for it.

3 Only the FOJ may in­ter­rupt the trans­it to pro­sec­ute an of­fence or to ex­ecute a crim­in­al judg­ment in Switzer­land.

63 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Section 2 Protection of Rights

Art. 21 Common provisions  

1 The de­fend­ant may ap­point a leg­al ad­viser. If he chooses not to do so or is not in a po­s­i­tion to do so, a leg­al ad­viser shall be of­fi­cially ap­poin­ted if re­quired to safe­guard the in­terests of the de­fend­ant.

2 Oth­er per­sons who are af­fected by the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ures or who, as in­jured parties, are present at en­quir­ies, may, if the safe­guard­ing of their in­terests so re­quires, be as­sisted by a leg­al ad­viser while mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ures are be­ing car­ried out and, provided the ob­ject of the in­vest­ig­a­tion is not pre­ju­diced, be rep­res­en­ted by him.

3 Per­sons who are the sub­ject of for­eign crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings may chal­lenge rul­ings only if they are per­son­ally and dir­ectly af­fected by a mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ure and if they have an in­terest worthy of leg­al pro­tec­tion in the meas­ure be­ing re­voked or changed.64

4 Ap­peals filed against a de­cision made in ap­plic­a­tion of this Act shall not have a sus­pens­ive ef­fect. This rule does not ap­ply to ap­peals dir­ec­ted against a de­cision:

a.
grant­ing ex­tra­di­tion; or
b.
au­thor­ising the trans­mis­sion abroad of clas­si­fied in­form­a­tion or the hand­ing over of ob­jects or as­sets.65

64 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

65 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 22 Notice regarding appellate remedies 66  

Rul­ings and de­cisions is­sued by fed­er­al and can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies must give no­tice of the pos­sible ap­pel­late rem­ed­ies, the ap­pel­late au­thor­ity and the dead­line for fil­ing an ap­peal.

66 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 2367  

67 Re­pealed by An­nex No 30 of the FA of 17 June 2005 on the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2007 (AS 2006 2197; BBl 2001 4202).

Art. 2468  

68 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, with ef­fect from 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997 114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 25 Appeal 69  

1 First in­stance rul­ings by can­ton­al and fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies are sub­ject to an ap­peal dir­ectly to the Ap­peals Cham­ber of the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court un­less this Act stip­u­lates oth­er­wise.70

2 An ap­peal against a Swiss re­quest to an­oth­er State is only ad­miss­ible if that State is re­ques­ted to as­sume re­spons­ib­il­ity for the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings or the ex­e­cu­tion of a crim­in­al judg­ment. In this case, only de­fend­ants who are ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land are en­titled to ap­peal.71

2bisAn ap­peal against a Swiss re­quest for trans­fer­ring re­spons­ib­il­ity for the ex­e­cu­tion of a crim­in­al judg­ment in con­nec­tion with a trans­fer un­der Art­icle 101 para­graph 2 is ad­miss­ible.72

3 The FOJ may ap­peal against rul­ings by can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies as well as against de­cisions by the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court. The can­ton­al au­thor­ity is en­titled to ap­peal against the de­cision of the FOJ not to make a re­quest.73

4 An ap­peal may also be filed against the in­ad­miss­ible or ob­vi­ously im­prop­er ap­plic­a­tion of for­eign law.

574

6 The Ap­peals Cham­ber of the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court is not bound by the ap­plic­a­tions made by the parties.75

69 Amended by An­nex No 30 of the FA of 17 June 2005 on the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court, in force since 1 Jan. 2007 (AS 2006 2197; BBl 2001 4202).

70 Amended by An­nex No 30 of the FA of 17 June 2005 on the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court, in force since 1 Jan. 2007 (AS 2006 2197; BBl 2001 4202).

71 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

72 In­ser­ted by Art. 2 of the FD of 19 Dec. 2003, in force since 1 Oct. 2004 (AS 2004 41614162; BBl 2002 4340)

73 Amended by An­nex No 30 of the FA of 17 June 2005 on the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court, in force since 1 Jan. 2007 (AS 2006 2197; BBl 2001 4202).

74 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, with ef­fect from 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997 114; BBl 1995 III 1).

75 Amended by An­nex No 30 of the FA of 17 June 2005 on the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court, in force since 1 Jan. 2007 (AS 2006 2197; BBl 2001 4202).

Art. 26 Administrative appeal 76  

Rul­ings made by the De­part­ment un­der Art­icle 17 para­graph 1 shall be sub­ject to ap­peal to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil. …77

76 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995III 1).

77 Sen­tence re­pealed by An­nex No 30 of the FA of 17 June 2005 on the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2007 (AS 2006 2197; BBl 2001 4202).

Chapter 4 International Procedure

Art. 27 General rules for requests  

1 Art­icles 27 to 31 ap­ply to all pro­ced­ures un­der this Act sub­ject to the spe­cial rules of pro­ced­ure provided for in the oth­er parts of this Act.78

2 For­eign re­quests shall be ad­dressed dir­ectly to the FOJ.

3 Re­quests which are ad­dressed to an in­ap­pro­pri­ate au­thor­ity shall be for­war­ded ex of­fi­cio. The re­quest­ing au­thor­ity shall be duly no­ti­fied.

4 Re­quests in con­nec­tion with an ar­rest shall be dealt with without delay.

5 The non-ac­cept­ance or re­fus­al of a re­quest must be sub­stan­ti­ated.

78 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 28 Form and content of requests  

1 Re­quests shall be made in writ­ing.

2 The fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion must be provided in a re­quest:

a.
the of­fice is­su­ing the re­quest and, if ap­plic­able, the au­thor­ity hav­ing crim­in­al jur­is­dic­tion;
b.
the sub­ject mat­ter of and the reas­on for the re­quest;
c.
the leg­al term for the of­fence;
d.
de­tails that are as ex­act and com­plete as pos­sible on the per­son who is the sub­ject of the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings.

3 To per­mit the leg­al as­sess­ment of the of­fence, the fol­low­ing shall be ad­ded:

a.
a sum­mary of the rel­ev­ant al­leg­a­tions, ex­cept in the case of re­quests for ser­vice;
b.79
the word­ing of the reg­u­la­tions ap­plic­able at the place where the of­fence was com­mit­ted, ex­cept for re­quests for as­sist­ance in ac­cord­ance with Part Three of this Act.

4 For­eign of­fi­cial re­cords need not be leg­al­ised.

5 For­eign re­quests and their en­clos­ures shall be sub­mit­ted in Ger­man, French or Itali­an or be ac­com­pan­ied by a trans­la­tion in­to one of these lan­guages. Trans­la­tions must be of­fi­cially cer­ti­fied.

6 If a re­quest does not meet the form­al re­quire­ments, its cor­rec­tion or com­ple­tion may be de­man­ded; the or­der­ing of pro­vi­sion­al meas­ures is not af­fected thereby.

79 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 29 Transmission  

1 The FOJ may re­ceive re­quests dir­ectly from the min­istry of justice of the re­quest­ing State.

2 When pro­vi­sion­al meas­ures must be taken or in ur­gent cases, the in­ter­ven­tion of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­in­al Po­lice or­gan­isa­tion (ICPO In­ter­pol) may be en­lis­ted or a copy of the writ­ten re­quest may be sent dir­ectly to the au­thor­ity com­pet­ent for its ex­e­cu­tion.

Art. 30 Swiss requests  

1 Swiss au­thor­it­ies may not ad­dress to an­oth­er State re­quests which they them­selves could not grant un­der this Act.

2 The FOJ is com­pet­ent for re­quests for ex­tra­di­tion, trans­fer of pro­ceed­ings or ex­e­cu­tion of crim­in­al judg­ments; it shall take ac­tion at the re­quest of the re­quest­ing Swiss au­thor­ity.80

3 Con­di­tions which the re­ques­ted State at­taches to the ex­e­cu­tion of the re­quest must be ob­served by the Swiss au­thor­it­ies.

4 The FOJ may de­cline to make a re­quest if the im­port­ance of the of­fence does not jus­ti­fy the pro­ceed­ings.

5 The FOJ shall in­form the re­quest­ing Swiss au­thor­ity im­me­di­ately if the re­ques­ted State re­quires a court or­der for a re­ques­ted mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ure.81

80 Amended by An­nex 1 No 11 of the FA of 17 June 2022, in force since 1 Jan. 2024 (AS 2023 468; BBl 2019 6697).

81 In­ser­ted by An­nex 1 No 11 of the FA of 17 June 2022, in force since 1 Jan. 2024 (AS 2023 468; BBl 2019 6697).

Art. 31 Costs  

1 As a rule, for­eign re­quests shall be ex­ecuted free of charge.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the con­di­tions un­der which the re­quest­ing State may be charged full or par­tial costs.

3 The costs of a Swiss re­quest that are re­im­bursed to an­oth­er State shall be charged to the pro­ceed­ings that caused the re­quest to be made.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the shar­ing of costs between the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons.

Part Two Extradition

Chapter 1 Conditions

Art. 32 Foreign nationals  

For­eign na­tion­als may be sur­rendered to an­oth­er State for pro­sec­u­tion or en­force­ment of a sen­tence in­volving depriva­tion of liberty for acts which come un­der its crim­in­al jur­is­dic­tion if that State re­quests ex­tra­di­tion or if it ac­cepts the Swiss re­quest to pro­sec­ute the of­fence or en­force the judg­ment.

Art. 33 Persons under 20 years of age  

1 Chil­dren and ju­ven­iles as defined in the Swiss Crim­in­al Code82 whose ex­tra­di­tion is re­ques­ted shall, if pos­sible, be re­pat­ri­ated by the ju­ven­ile au­thor­it­ies. The same ap­plies to per­sons between the ages of 18 and 20 if ex­tra­di­tion could en­danger their men­tal de­vel­op­ment or so­cial re­hab­il­it­a­tion.

2 Re­pat­ri­ation shall have the ef­fects of an ex­tra­di­tion.

Art. 3483  

83 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, with ef­fect from 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997 114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 35 Extraditable offences  

1 Ex­tra­di­tion is per­mit­ted if, ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ments sup­port­ing the re­quest, the of­fence:

a.
is pun­ish­able by depriva­tion of liberty for a max­im­um peri­od of at least one year or a more severe sen­tence both un­der the law of Switzer­land and un­der the law of the re­quest­ing State and
b.
is not sub­ject to Swiss jur­is­dic­tion.

2 In de­term­in­ing wheth­er an act is an of­fence un­der Swiss law, the fol­low­ing are not con­sidered:

a.
its spe­cif­ic de­grees of guilt and con­di­tions for crim­in­al li­ab­il­ity;
b.
the con­di­tions re­lat­ing to the per­son­al and time-re­lated ap­plic­a­tion of the Swiss Crim­in­al Code84 and the Swiss Mil­it­ary Crim­in­al Code of 13 June 192785 with re­gard to the crim­in­al pro­vi­sions on gen­o­cide, crimes against hu­man­ity and war crimes.86

84 SR311.0

85SR 321.0

86 Amended by No I 4 of the FA of 18 June 2010 on the Amend­ment of the Fed­er­al Act in Im­ple­ment­a­tion of the Rome Stat­ute of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­in­al Court, in force since 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 4963; BBl 2008 3863).

Art. 36 Special cases  

1 As an ex­cep­tion, the de­fend­ant may be ex­tra­dited for an of­fence which comes un­der Swiss jur­is­dic­tion if spe­cial cir­cum­stances, es­pe­cially the pos­sib­il­ity of bet­ter so­cial re­hab­il­it­a­tion, jus­ti­fy it.

2 If one of two or more of­fences is ex­tra­dit­able (Art. 35 para. 1), ex­tra­di­tion may be gran­ted for all of­fences.

Art. 37 Denial  

1 Ex­tra­di­tion may be denied if Switzer­land can as­sume re­spons­ib­il­ity for the pro­sec­u­tion of the of­fence or the ex­e­cu­tion of the for­eign crim­in­al judg­ment and if this ap­pears to be ap­pro­pri­ate with re­gard to the so­cial re­hab­il­it­a­tion of the de­fend­ant.

2 Ex­tra­di­tion shall be denied if the re­quest is based on a ver­dict is­sued in the ab­sence of the de­fend­ant and if the min­im­um rights of the de­fence to which a de­fend­ant is re­cog­nised to be en­titled were not re­spec­ted in the pro­ceed­ings pre­ced­ing the ver­dict; this rule does not ap­ply if the re­quest­ing State gives suf­fi­cient as­sur­ances to guar­an­tee the de­fend­ant the right to new court pro­ceed­ings where the rights of the de­fence are re­spec­ted.87

3 Ex­tra­di­tion shall also be denied if the re­quest­ing State fails to guar­an­tee that the de­fend­ant will not be sen­tenced to death, that an already pro­nounced death pen­alty will not be car­ried out, or that he will not be sub­jec­ted to treat­ment that will im­pair his phys­ic­al in­teg­rity.88

87 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

88 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 38 Conditions  

1 The de­fend­ant may be ex­tra­dited only on con­di­tion that the re­quest­ing State:

a.
neither pro­sec­utes nor sen­tences nor re-ex­tra­dites him to a third State for any of­fence com­mit­ted pri­or to his ex­tra­di­tion and for which ex­tra­di­tion was not gran­ted;
b.89
does not de­prive him of his liberty on any oth­er ground that ex­is­ted be­fore his ex­tra­di­tion;
c.90
does not bring him be­fore an ex­traordin­ary court; and moreover
d.
sends the Swiss au­thor­it­ies, at their re­quest, an of­fi­cially cer­ti­fied copy of the de­cision which con­cludes the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings.

2 The con­di­tions of para­graph 1 let­ters a and b no longer ap­ply if:

a.
the de­fend­ant or ex­tra­dited ex­pressly waives them; or
b.
the per­son ex­tra­dited:
1.
in spite of be­ing ad­vised of the con­sequences has not left the ter­rit­ory of the re­quest­ing State with­in forty-five days of his con­di­tion­al or fi­nal re­lease des­pite hav­ing the op­por­tun­ity to do so, or if, after leav­ing that ter­rit­ory, he has re­turned, or
2.
has been re­turned by a third State.91

89 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

90 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

91 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 39 Extension  

If the ex­tra­dited per­son is charged with oth­er of­fences, the State to which he was ex­tra­dited may be per­mit­ted, on mak­ing a new re­quest, to pro­sec­ute these of­fences as well.

Art. 40 Requests by more than one State  

1 If two or more States re­quest ex­tra­di­tion for the same of­fence, ex­tra­di­tion shall be gran­ted as a rule to the State where the of­fence was com­mit­ted or prin­cip­ally per­pet­rated.

2 If ex­tra­di­tion is re­ques­ted by more than one State for dif­fer­ent of­fences, the de­cision shall be made hav­ing due re­gard to all cir­cum­stances, es­pe­cially the ser­i­ous­ness of the of­fences, the place of com­mis­sion, the chro­no­lo­gic­al or­der in which the re­quests were re­ceived, the na­tion­al­ity of the de­fend­ant, the bet­ter pro­spect of so­cial re­hab­il­it­a­tion and the pos­sib­il­ity of ex­tra­di­tion to an­oth­er State.

Chapter 2 Procedure

Section 1 Requests

Art. 41 Documents supporting the request  

In ad­di­tion to the doc­u­ments spe­cified in Art­icle 28 para­graph 3, the fol­low­ing shall be en­closed with the re­quest: the ori­gin­al or an of­fi­cially au­then­tic­ated copy of an en­force­able judg­ment, of an ar­rest war­rant or of any oth­er doc­u­ment is­sued in ac­cord­ance with the reg­u­la­tions of the re­quest­ing State and hav­ing the same ef­fect.

Art. 42 Request for tracing and arrest  

Re­quests for tra­cing and ar­rest with a view to ex­tra­di­tion shall con­tain, in ad­di­tion to the items of in­form­a­tion spe­cified in Art­icle 28 para­graphs 2 and 3 let­ter a, ref­er­ences to the fol­low­ing:

a.
the ex­ist­ence of a val­id ar­rest war­rant, its date of is­sue and the name of the is­su­ing au­thor­ity;
b.
the in­ten­tion of the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity to make a re­quest for ex­tra­di­tion.
Art. 43 Consideration of the request  

The FOJ shall de­cide wheth­er and un­der what con­di­tions it will con­sider the re­quest.

Section 2 Provisional Measures

Art. 44 Arrest  

For­eign na­tion­als may be ar­res­ted with a view to ex­tra­di­tion on the basis of a re­quest by an In­ter­pol Na­tion­al Cent­ral Bur­eau or the Min­istry of Justice of an­oth­er State or on the basis of an in­ter­na­tion­al alert in a po­lice search sys­tem.92 Art­icle 52 para­graphs 1 and 2 ap­ply by ana­logy.

92 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 45 Seizure of objects  

1 At the time of ar­rest, ob­jects and as­sets which can serve as evid­ence in for­eign crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings or which ori­gin­ate from an of­fence shall be seized.

2 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies may, if ne­ces­sary, or­der that the ar­res­ted per­son or the rooms be searched.

Art. 46 Notice of
execution. Duration of measures
 

1 Ar­rest and seizure shall be re­por­ted to the FOJ.

2 They shall con­tin­ue un­til a de­cision con­cern­ing the de­ten­tion await­ing ex­tra­di­tion is is­sued but at the latest un­til the third work­day after the ar­rest.

Section 3 Detention awaiting Extradition and Seizure

Art. 47 Arrest warrant and other rulings  

1 The FOJ shall is­sue an ar­rest war­rant with a view to ex­tra­di­tion. It may de­cline to do so, es­pe­cially if the de­fend­ant:

a.
will prob­ably not elude ex­tra­di­tion and will not en­danger the crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion; or
b.
can prove without delay that he was not at the place of the of­fence when it was com­mit­ted.

2 If the de­fend­ant is un­fit to re­main in de­ten­tion or if there are oth­er val­id reas­ons, the FOJ may or­der meas­ures oth­er than de­ten­tion to en­sure his pres­ence.

3 At the same time the FOJ shall rule on which ob­jects and as­sets will re­main seized or must be seized.

Art. 48 Content  

1 Rul­ings un­der Art­icle 47 shall con­tain:

a.
in­form­a­tion, provided by the for­eign au­thor­ity, con­cern­ing the iden­tity of the de­fend­ant and the of­fence al­leged against this per­son;
b.
the name of the of­fice which made the re­quest;
c.
the con­firm­a­tion that ex­tra­di­tion will be re­ques­ted;
d.
the no­tice re­gard­ing the right of ap­peal un­der para­graph 2 and the right to ap­point a leg­al ad­viser.

2 An ap­peal against these rul­ings may be filed with the Ap­peals Cham­ber of the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court with­in ten days of the serving of the writ­ten ar­rest war­rant with a view to ex­tra­di­tion. Art­icles 379–397 Crim­PC93 ap­ply by ana­logy to the ap­peal pro­ced­ure.94

93 SR 312.0

94 Amended by An­nex 1 No II 13 of the Crim­in­al Pro­ced­ure Code of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 1881; BBl 2006 1085).

Art. 49 Execution  

1 The ex­e­cu­tion of rul­ings un­der Art­icle 47 is a mat­ter for the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies.

2 The ar­rest war­rant with a view to ex­tra­di­tion may not be ex­ecuted while the de­fend­ant is held in de­ten­tion await­ing tri­al or is serving a sen­tence.95

3 The de­fend­ant may neither be re­leased nor de­por­ted from Switzer­land without the con­sent of the FOJ.

95 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 50 Release from detention  

1 The FOJ shall or­der the re­lease of the per­son con­cerned from de­ten­tion 18 days after ar­rest if the re­quest for ex­tra­di­tion and the doc­u­ments sup­port­ing it have not been re­ceived.96 This peri­od may be ex­ten­ded for spe­cial cause by up to 40 days.

2 If the de­fend­ant is already de­tained, the peri­od shall start when he is de­tained with a view to ex­tra­di­tion.

3 By way of ex­cep­tion, the per­son con­cerned may be re­leased from de­ten­tion with a view to ex­tra­di­tion at any stage of the pro­ceed­ings if this is ap­pro­pri­ate in the cir­cum­stances. The de­fend­ant may lodge a pe­ti­tion for re­lease at any time.

4 In ad­di­tion, Art­icles 238–240 Crim­PC97 ap­ply by ana­logy to re­lease from de­ten­tion.98

96 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

97 SR 312.0

98 Amended by An­nex 1 No II 13 of the Crim­in­al Pro­ced­ure Code of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 1881; BBl 2006 1085).

Art. 51 Continuation and renewal of detention  

1 If the re­quest and its en­clos­ures are re­ceived in time and if ex­tra­di­tion is not ob­vi­ously in­ad­miss­ible, de­ten­tion shall con­tin­ue throughout the pro­ceed­ings without spe­cial rul­ing.

2 If the de­fend­ant has been re­leased, de­ten­tion with a view to ex­tra­di­tion may be ordered again.

Section 4 Preparation of the Extradition Decision

Art. 52 Right to be heard  

1 The re­quest and the doc­u­ments sup­port­ing it shall be sub­mit­ted to the de­fend­ant and to his leg­al ad­viser. When form­ally present­ing the de­fend­ant with the ar­rest war­rant with a view to ex­tra­di­tion, the can­ton­al au­thor­ity shall as­cer­tain if the de­fend­ant is identic­al with the per­son men­tioned in the re­quest. It shall ex­plain to him the con­di­tions of ex­tra­di­tion and of sim­pli­fied ex­tra­di­tion and ad­vise him of the right to ap­peal, to ap­point a leg­al ad­viser or to have a leg­al ad­viser of­fi­cially ap­poin­ted.99

2 The de­fend­ant shall be ques­tioned briefly about his per­son­al cir­cum­stances, and es­pe­cially his na­tion­al­ity and re­la­tion­ship with the re­quest­ing State, and asked if and for what reas­ons he raises ob­jec­tions to the ar­rest war­rant or his ex­tra­di­tion. His leg­al ad­viser may as­sist in this hear­ing.

3 If the ex­tra­dited per­son is to be pro­sec­uted for oth­er of­fences or re-ex­tra­dited to a third State, the FOJ shall ar­range for him to be ques­tioned on the re­cord in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 by a ju­di­cial au­thor­ity of the re­quest­ing State.

99 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 53 Alibi evidence  

1 If the de­fend­ant claims to be able to prove that he was not at the scene of the of­fence when it was com­mit­ted, the FOJ shall make the ne­ces­sary in­vest­ig­a­tions.

2 Ex­tra­di­tion shall be denied in clear cases. In oth­er cases, the ex­culp­at­ory evid­ence shall be sub­mit­ted to the re­quest­ing State which shall be asked to de­clare with­in a short time wheth­er it wishes to con­tin­ue with its re­quest.

Art. 54 Simplified extradition 100  

1 If the de­fend­ant places on the re­cord be­fore a ju­di­cial au­thor­ity that he waives the re­quire­ment of ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings, the FOJ shall or­der his sur­render un­less there are spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tions pro­hib­it­ing it.

2 This waiver may be re­voked provided the FOJ has not ordered the sur­render.

3 Sim­pli­fied ex­tra­di­tion shall have the ef­fect of ex­tra­di­tion and is sub­ject to the same con­di­tions. The re­quest­ing State shall be giv­en no­tice there­of.

100 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Section 5 Decision on Extradition

Art. 55 Competence  

1 After set­ting the de­fend­ant and the third party ob­ject­ing to the hand­ing over of ob­jects an ap­pro­pri­ate dead­line for stat­ing their po­s­i­tion, the FOJ shall rule on the ex­tra­di­tion of the de­fend­ant and the hand­ing over of ob­jects and as­sets seized.101

2 If the de­fend­ant claims that he is be­ing charged with a polit­ic­al of­fence or if the in­vest­ig­a­tion re­veals ser­i­ous grounds to be­lieve that the of­fence is of a polit­ic­al nature, the Ap­peals Cham­ber of the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court shall de­cide the case.102 The FOJ shall send the file to this Court, to­geth­er with its pro­pos­al. The de­fend­ant shall be giv­en the op­por­tun­ity to state his po­s­i­tion.

3 The pro­ced­ure for an ap­peal un­der Art­icle 25 ap­plies by ana­logy.103

101 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

102 Amended by An­nex No 30 of the FA of 17 June 2005 on the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court, in force since 1 Jan. 2007 (AS 2006 2197; BBl 2001 4202).

103 Amended by An­nex No 30 of the Fed­er­al Act of 17 June 2005 on the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court, in force since 1 Jan. 2007 (AS 2006 2197; BBl 2001 4202).

Art. 55a Coordination with asylum proceedings 104  

If the de­fend­ant has ap­plied for asylum un­der the Asylum Act of 26 June 1998105, the FOJ and the ap­pel­late au­thor­ity shall con­sult the files from the asylum pro­ceed­ings when de­cid­ing on ex­tra­di­tion.

104 In­ser­ted by No I 3 of the FA of 1 Oct. 2010 on the Co­ordin­a­tion of Asylum and Ex­tra­di­tion Pro­ced­ures, in force since 1 April 2011 (AS 2011 925; BBl 2010 1467).

105 SR 142.31

Section 6 Execution

Art. 56 Executability  

1 Ex­tra­di­tion may be ex­ecuted if the de­fend­ant:

a.
ex­pressly re­quests his own im­me­di­ate ex­tra­di­tion; or
b.
does not give no­tice with­in five days of the is­sue of the rul­ing that he will file an ap­peal.

2 If ex­tra­di­tion is re­fused, the FOJ shall re­lease the per­son con­cerned from de­ten­tion with a view to ex­tra­di­tion.

Art. 57 Extradition  

1 The FOJ shall is­sue the ne­ces­sary rul­ings in agree­ment with the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies.

2 It shall no­ti­fy the re­quest­ing State of the de­cision as well as of the date and place of ex­tra­di­tion.

Art. 58 Postponement. Provisional surrender  

1 Ex­tra­di­tion may be post­poned provided the per­son to be ex­tra­dited is be­ing pro­sec­uted in Switzer­land for oth­er of­fences or if he has to serve a sen­tence in­volving depriva­tion of liberty.

2 However, pro­vi­sion­al sur­render of the de­fend­ant may be gran­ted if:

a.
this will not be pre­ju­di­cial to the Swiss crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings; and
b.
the re­quest­ing State has guar­an­teed to keep the de­fend­ant in cus­tody dur­ing his stay in that State and will re­turn him re­gard­less of his na­tion­al­ity.
Art. 59 Handing over of objects and assets 106  

1 If the con­di­tions set for the ex­tra­di­tion are met, ob­jects and as­sets shall also be handed over which:

a.
can serve as evid­ence; or
b.
de­rive from the of­fence.

2 If an au­thor­ity, or a third party with rights ac­quired in good faith, or the vic­tim who lives in Switzer­land as­serts rights over the ob­jects or as­sets which can serve as evid­ence, their hand­ing over shall be sub­ject to the con­di­tion that the re­quest­ing State guar­an­tees their re­turn without costs after the con­clu­sion of its pro­ceed­ings.

3 The ob­jects or as­sets which de­rive from the of­fence in­clude:

a.
in­stru­ments which served to com­mit the of­fence;
b.
products or profits of the of­fence, their re­place­ment value and any un­law­ful ad­vant­age;
c.
gifts and oth­er be­ne­fits which served to in­stig­ate the of­fence or re­com­pense the per­pet­rat­or for the of­fence, as well as their re­place­ment value.

4 The ob­jects or as­sets which de­rive from the of­fence may be re­tained in Switzer­land if:

a.
the vic­tim is ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land and they have to be re­turned to him;
b.
an au­thor­ity as­serts rights over them; or
c.
a per­son not in­volved in the of­fence and whose claims are not guar­an­teed by the re­quest­ing State shows prob­able cause that he has ac­quired rights over the ob­jects and as­sets in good faith in Switzer­land, or, if he is ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land, in a for­eign coun­try.

5 Ob­jects or as­sets men­tioned in the first para­graph and which are re­quired for pending crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings in Switzer­land may also be re­tained in Switzer­land.

6 If a per­son en­titled to the ob­jects or as­sets makes a claim un­der para­graph 4, the ob­jects or as­sets shall not be handed over un­til the leg­al po­s­i­tion has been cla­ri­fied. Ob­jects or as­sets in dis­pute shall be re­turned to the per­son en­titled only if:

a.
the re­quest­ing State gives its con­sent;
b.
in the case of para­graph 4 let­ter b, the au­thor­ity gives its con­sent; or
c.
the jus­ti­fic­a­tion of the claim is re­cog­nised by a Swiss ju­di­cial au­thor­ity.

7 The hand­ing over of ob­jects and as­sets is not de­pend­ent on the ex­e­cu­tion of the ex­tra­di­tion of the de­fend­ant.

8 Ob­jects and as­sets in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 let­ter b to which Switzer­land is en­titled ac­cord­ing to an as­set-shar­ing agree­ment based on the Fed­er­al Act of 19 March 2004107 on the Di­vi­sion of For­feited As­sets are not handed over.108

106 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

107 SR 312.4

108 In­ser­ted by An­nex No 2 of the FA of 19 March 2004 on the Di­vi­sion of For­feited As­sets, in force since 1 Au­gust 2004 (AS 2004 3503; BBl 2002 441).

Art. 60 Fiscal lien  

1 If ob­jects or as­sets are handed over and their re­turn is waived, the cus­toms li­en or any oth­er real li­ab­il­ity un­der Swiss cus­toms or tax law shall not be claimed if the own­er who suffered loss as a res­ult of the of­fence does not per­son­ally owe the duty or tax.

2 The waiver of such a fisc­al li­en may be made de­pend­ent on re­cipro­city.

Art. 61 Time limit for taking over  

If the re­quest­ing State does not take the ne­ces­sary steps to take over the per­son to be ex­tra­dited with­in ten days of no­ti­fic­a­tion of the ex­e­cu­tion or­der, he shall be re­leased. This time lim­it may be ex­ten­ded up to 30 days in re­sponse to a jus­ti­fied re­quest from the re­quest­ing State.

Art. 62 Costs  

1 In the event of ex­tra­di­tion to a for­eign coun­try, the Swiss Con­fed­er­a­tion shall pay the costs of de­ten­tion and trans­port­a­tion provided that it is cus­tom­ary in in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions for the re­ques­ted State to pay such costs.

2 The per­son­al prop­erty of the de­fend­ant may be used to cov­er the costs provided it does not have to be handed over to the re­quest­ing State.

Part Three Other Mutual Assistance

Chapter 1 Requirements

Section 1 General

Art. 63 Principle  

1 Mu­tu­al as­sist­ance with­in the mean­ing of Part Three of this Act shall com­prise the trans­mis­sion of in­form­a­tion, as well as pro­ced­ur­al acts and oth­er of­fi­cial acts per­mit­ted un­der Swiss law provided these acts ap­pear to be ne­ces­sary for pro­ceed­ings car­ried out abroad in crim­in­al mat­ters or serve to re­trieve the pro­ceeds of the of­fence.109

2 Mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ures shall in­clude in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
the ser­vice of doc­u­ments;
b.
ob­tain­ing evid­ence, and in par­tic­u­lar search­ing per­sons and rooms, seizure, or­ders to pro­duce, ex­pert opin­ions, con­duct­ing hear­ings and con­front­a­tions of per­sons;
c.
pro­duc­tion of doc­u­ments and pa­pers;
d.
hand­ing over of ob­jects or as­sets with a view to for­feit­ure or for resti­tu­tion to the en­titled per­son.110

3 The fol­low­ing shall, in par­tic­u­lar, be con­sidered pro­ceed­ings car­ried out in crim­in­al mat­ters:

a.
pro­sec­u­tion of crim­in­al of­fences as provided for in Art­icle 1 para­graph 3;
b.
ad­min­is­trat­ive meas­ures against an of­fend­er;
c.
ex­e­cu­tion of crim­in­al judg­ments and par­dons;
d.
com­pens­a­tion for un­jus­ti­fied de­ten­tion.111

4 As­sist­ance may also be gran­ted to the European Court of Hu­man Rights and to the European Com­mis­sion on Hu­man Rights in pro­ceed­ings re­gard­ing the safe­guard­ing of hu­man rights and fun­da­ment­al freedoms.

5 As­sist­ance which will ex­on­er­ate a de­fend­ant is per­mit­ted even if the re­quest is in­ad­miss­ible un­der Art­icles 3–5.

109 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

110 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

111 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 64 Compulsory measures  

1 Meas­ures un­der Art­icle 63 which re­quire the use of pro­ced­ur­al com­pul­sion may be ordered only if the de­scrip­tion of the cir­cum­stances of the case in­dic­ates that the of­fence be­ing pro­sec­uted abroad con­tains the ob­ject­ive ele­ments of an of­fence un­der Swiss law. The meas­ures must be car­ried out in ac­cord­ance with Swiss law.

2 If the of­fence pro­sec­uted abroad is not an of­fence in Switzer­land, meas­ures un­der Art­icle 63 which re­quire the use of pro­ced­ur­al com­pul­sion shall be al­lowed for:

a.
the ex­on­er­a­tion of a de­fend­ant;
b.112
the pro­sec­u­tion of of­fences in­volving sexu­al acts with minors.113

112 Amended by An­nex No 16 of the FA of 19 Dec. 2008 (Adult Pro­tec­tion, Law of Per­sons and Law of Chil­dren), in force since 1 Jan. 2013 (AS 2011 725; BBl 20067001).

113 Amended by An­nex No 4 of the FA of 13 Dec. 2002, in force since 1 Jan. 2007 (AS 2006 3459; BBl 19991979).

Art. 65 Application of foreign law 114  

1 At the ex­press re­quest of the for­eign State:

a.
the state­ments of wit­nesses or ex­perts shall be af­firmed in the form pre­scribed by the laws of the re­quest­ing State, even if the ap­plic­able Swiss law does not provide such a form;
b.
forms ne­ces­sary to ob­tain oth­er evid­ence that is ad­miss­ible in court may be taken in­to con­sid­er­a­tion.

2 Forms for ob­tain­ing and af­firm­ing evid­ence ac­cord­ing to para­graph 1 must be com­pat­ible with Swiss law, and no es­sen­tial pre­ju­dice may res­ult there­from to the per­sons in­volved.

3 A per­son may also re­fuse to testi­fy provided the law of the re­quest­ing State so provides or if the fact of testi­fy­ing may cause crim­in­al or dis­cip­lin­ary sanc­tions to be im­posed un­der the laws of that State or of the State where the ex­amined per­son lives.

114 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 65a Presence of persons participating in proceedings abroad 115  

1 When the re­quest­ing State, based on its law, so re­quests, per­sons who are par­ti­cip­at­ing in pro­ceed­ings abroad may be au­thor­ised to at­tend mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings and to have ac­cess to the files.

2 Their pres­ence may also be per­mit­ted if it sub­stan­tially helps to fa­cil­it­ate the ex­e­cu­tion of the re­quest or the for­eign crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings.

3 Their pres­ence may not lead to their ob­tain­ing ac­cess to in­form­a­tion with­in the scope of secrecy be­fore the ap­pro­pri­ate au­thor­ity has de­cided wheth­er, and to what ex­tent, as­sist­ance may be gran­ted.

115 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 66 Principle of « Ne bis in idem»116  

1 As­sist­ance may be denied if the de­fend­ant resides in Switzer­land and pro­ceed­ings are already pending here re­gard­ing the of­fence to which the re­quest relates.

2 However, as­sist­ance may be gran­ted if the pro­ceed­ings car­ried out abroad are not dir­ec­ted solely against the de­fend­ant who is resid­ing in Switzer­land, or if the ex­e­cu­tion of the re­quest serves to ex­on­er­ate him.117

116Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

117 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 67 Principle of speciality 118  

1 In­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments ob­tained through mu­tu­al as­sist­ance may not be used for in­vest­ig­at­ive pur­poses or as evid­ence in the re­quest­ing State in any pro­ceed­ings re­lat­ing to an of­fence for which as­sist­ance is not ad­miss­ible.

2 Any fur­ther use shall be sub­ject to ap­prov­al by the FOJ. This ap­prov­al is not ne­ces­sary if:

a.
the act to which the re­quest relates con­sti­tutes an­oth­er of­fence for which mu­tu­al as­sist­ance would be gran­ted; or
b.
the for­eign crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings are dir­ec­ted against oth­er per­sons who have par­ti­cip­ated in com­mit­ting the of­fence.

3 Pres­ence at the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings and ac­cess to the files shall be per­mit­ted un­der the same con­di­tions (Art. 65a para.1).

118 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 67a Spontaneous transmission of information and evidence 119  

1 An au­thor­ity pro­sec­ut­ing of­fences may, without be­ing re­ques­ted to do so, trans­mit to a for­eign au­thor­ity pro­sec­ut­ing of­fences in­form­a­tion or evid­ence that it has gathered in the course of its own in­vest­ig­a­tion, when it de­term­ines that this trans­mis­sion may:

a.
per­mit the open­ing of crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings; or
b.
fa­cil­it­ate an on­go­ing crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion.

2 The trans­mis­sion as defined in para­graph 1 does not have any ef­fect on the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings pending in Switzer­land.

3 The trans­mis­sion of evid­ence to a State with which Switzer­land does not have an in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment shall be sub­ject to au­thor­isa­tion by the FOJ.

4 Para­graphs 1 and 2 do not ap­ply to evid­ence that is sub­ject to the rules on secrecy.

5 In­form­a­tion that is sub­ject to the rules on secrecy may be trans­mit­ted if it may en­able the for­eign State to present a re­quest for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance.

6 A re­cord shall be made of each spon­tan­eous trans­mis­sion.

119 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Section 2 Specific Mutual Assistance Measures

Art. 68 Service of
documents. General provisions
 

1 Where a Swiss au­thor­ity is re­ques­ted to serve doc­u­ments, ser­vice may be ef­fected by per­son­al or postal de­liv­ery to the re­cip­i­ent.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may per­mit the dir­ect ser­vice of doc­u­ments from abroad to the re­cip­i­ent in Switzer­land. It shall de­term­ine the con­di­tions for such ser­vice.

3 Ser­vice is pre­sumed to be ef­fected if ac­cept­ance or re­fus­al to ac­cept has been con­firmed in writ­ing.

Art. 69 Service of
summonses. Safe conduct
 

1 There is no ob­lig­a­tion to com­ply for any per­son who ac­cepts a sum­mons to ap­pear be­fore a for­eign au­thor­ity.

2 Sum­monses con­tain­ing threats of com­pul­sion shall not be served.

3 Ser­vice of a sum­mons may be made sub­ject to the con­di­tion that the re­cip­i­ent is guar­an­teed safe con­duct for an ap­pro­pri­ate peri­od of time and will not be pre­ven­ted from freely leav­ing the ter­rit­ory of the re­quest­ing State. If the re­cip­i­ent so re­quires, the au­thor­ity ef­fect­ing ser­vice shall ask the re­quest­ing State to give a writ­ten as­sur­ance there­of be­fore proof of ser­vice is fur­nished.

Art. 70 Transfer of arrested persons  

1 Per­sons held in cus­tody in Switzer­land may be trans­ferred to a for­eign au­thor­ity for the pur­pose of in­vest­ig­a­tions if they are guar­an­teed safe con­duct and if it is guar­an­teed that they will be kept in cus­tody and re­turned to Switzer­land on re­quest.

2 Per­sons who are not in­dicted abroad and Swiss cit­izens may be trans­ferred only with their writ­ten con­sent. This is not ne­ces­sary if the trans­fer is re­quired for the ex­e­cu­tion of a Swiss re­quest or for con­front­a­tion with oth­er per­sons abroad.

Art. 71120  

120 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, with ef­fect from 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997 114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 72 Maintaining of custody  

1 If a de­tained per­son is sur­rendered to the Swiss au­thor­it­ies in the course of an act of as­sist­ance, the war­rant for his ar­rest is­sued abroad shall also be val­id in Switzer­land for the peri­od of his stay in Switzer­land.

2 Dur­ing trans­it the de­fend­ant shall be kept in cus­tody by vir­tue of the or­der for trans­it giv­en by the FOJ.

3 In those cases the de­tained per­son may be re­leased only with the agree­ment of the com­pet­ent for­eign au­thor­ity.

Art. 73 Safe conduct in Switzerland  

1 A per­son ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent abroad and who ap­pears in Switzer­land in a crim­in­al case pur­su­ant to a sum­mons may neither be pro­sec­uted nor re­stric­ted in his per­son­al free­dom for reas­ons that oc­curred pri­or to his entry in­to Switzer­land.

2 The de­fend­ant shall en­joy no safe con­duct re­gard­ing the of­fences spe­cified in the sum­mons.

3 The safe con­duct provided for in para­graph 1 shall cease when this per­son leaves Switzer­land but at the latest three days after he is per­mit­ted to leave by the sum­mon­ing au­thor­it­ies.

Art. 74 Handing over of evidence 121  

1 On re­quest, ob­jects, doc­u­ments or as­sets seized as evid­ence as well as re­cords and de­cisions shall be made avail­able to the com­pet­ent for­eign au­thor­ity after con­clu­sion of the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings (Art. 80d).

2 If a third party with rights ac­quired in good faith, an au­thor­ity, or the vic­tim who is ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land claim that they have rights over the ob­jects, doc­u­ments or as­sets un­der para­graph 1, their hand­ing over shall be sub­ject to the con­di­tion that the re­quest­ing State gives the guar­an­tee to re­turn them free of charge after the con­clu­sion of the pro­ceed­ings.

3 Re­turn may be delayed if the ob­jects, doc­u­ments or as­sets are ne­ces­sary for crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings pending in Switzer­land.

4 Art­icle 60 ap­plies to fisc­al li­ens.

121 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 74a Handing over of objects or assets for the purpose of forfeiture or return 122  

1 On re­quest, ob­jects or as­sets sub­ject to a pre­cau­tion­ary seizure may be handed over to the com­pet­ent for­eign au­thor­ity after con­clu­sion of the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings (Art. 80d) for the pur­pose of for­feit­ure or re­turn to the per­son en­titled.

2 The ob­jects or as­sets re­ferred to in para­graph 1 in­clude:

a.
in­stru­ments which were used to com­mit the of­fence;
b.
products of or profits from the of­fence, their re­place­ment value and any un­law­ful ad­vant­age;
c.
gifts and oth­er con­tri­bu­tions which served to in­stig­ate the of­fence or re­com­pense the of­fend­er, as well as their re­place­ment value.

3 The hand­ing over may take place at any stage of the for­eign pro­ceed­ings, nor­mally based on a fi­nal and ex­ecut­able de­cision from the re­quest­ing State.

4 However, the ob­jects or as­sets may be re­tained in Switzer­land if:

a.
the vic­tim is ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land and they have to be re­turned to him;
b.
an au­thor­ity as­serts rights over them;
c.
a per­son not in­volved in the of­fence and whose claims are not guar­an­teed by the re­quest­ing State shows prob­able cause that he has ac­quired rights over these ob­jects and as­sets in good faith in Switzer­land, or if he is ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land, in a for­eign coun­try; or
d.
the ob­jects or as­sets are ne­ces­sary for pending crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings in Switzer­land or ap­pear, be­cause of their nature, to be sub­ject to for­feit­ure in Switzer­land.

5 Whenev­er a per­son claims to have rights over the ob­jects or as­sets un­der para­graph 4, its hand­ing over to the re­quest­ing State shall be post­poned un­til the leg­al situ­ation is clear. The ob­jects or as­sets claimed may be handed over to the per­son en­titled if:

a.
the re­quest­ing State agrees;
b.
in the case of para­graph 4 let­ter b, the au­thor­ity gives its con­sent; or
c.
the claim has been re­cog­nised by a Swiss court.

6 Art­icle 60 ap­plies to fisc­al li­ens.

7Ob­jects and as­sets to which Switzer­land is en­titled ac­cord­ing to an as­set shar­ing agree­ment based on the Fed­er­al Act of 19 March 2004123 on the Di­vi­sion of For­feited As­sets shall not be handed over in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1.124

122 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

123 SR 312.4

124 In­ser­ted by An­nex No 2 of the FA of 19 March 2004 on the Di­vi­sion of For­feited As­sets, in force since 1 Au­gust 2004 (AS 2004 3503; BBl 2002 441).

Chapter 2 Procedure

Section 1 Requests for Mutual Assistance

Art. 75 Authorisation for requesting mutual assistance  

1 Re­quests for as­sist­ance may be sub­mit­ted by au­thor­it­ies that are com­pet­ent to in­vest­ig­ate of­fences or make de­cisions in oth­er pro­ceed­ings to which this Act is ap­plic­able.

2 Swiss au­thor­it­ies may also ac­cept re­quests for the ex­e­cu­tion of pro­ced­ur­al acts from the parties au­thor­ised to make them if those acts are in­cum­bent upon the parties un­der the laws of the re­quest­ing State.

3 The FOJ shall make re­quests for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance that is needed out­side crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings.125

125 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 75a Police requests 126  

1 The com­mis­sion­ers of po­lice of the Con­fed­er­a­tion and of the can­tons may make a re­quest un­der Art­icle 63 on their own be­half and may grant such re­quests em­an­at­ing from for­eign au­thor­it­ies.

2 The fol­low­ing re­quests are ex­cluded:

a.
re­quests which ne­ces­sit­ate the use of pro­ced­ur­al com­pul­sion;
b.
re­quests for in­form­a­tion or meas­ures in pro­ceed­ings re­gard­ing ex­tra­di­tion, trans­fer of pro­ceed­ings and ex­e­cu­tion of crim­in­al judg­ments;
c.
re­quests for the hand­ing over of crim­in­al de­cisions or crim­in­al files.

126 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 76 Content and documents  

In ad­di­tion to the in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments re­quired by Art­icle 28, the fol­low­ing shall be spe­cified in or en­closed with a re­quest:

a.
in re­quests for ser­vice: the name and ad­dress of the re­cip­i­ent and his po­s­i­tion in the pro­ceed­ings as well as the type of doc­u­ment to be served;
b.
with re­quests for trans­it: one of the doc­u­ments lis­ted in Art­icle 41;
c.
with re­quests for search of per­sons or rooms, for seizure or hand­ing over of ob­jects: con­firm­a­tion that these meas­ures are per­mit­ted in the re­quest­ing State.
Art. 77 Way of transmission 127  

1 For­eign re­quests shall be ad­dressed to the ap­pro­pri­ate can­ton­al au­thor­ity through the in­ter­me­di­ary of the FOJ.

2 Re­quests for ex­tracts from the Re­gister of Con­vic­tions or for de­term­in­ing the iden­tity of a per­son shall be ad­dressed to the FOJ128.

127 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

128 The des­ig­na­tion of the ad­min­is­trat­ive unit has been ad­ap­ted ac­cord­ing to Art. 16 para. 3 of the Pub­lic­a­tions O of 17 Nov. 2004 (AS 20044937).

Section 2 Treatment of the Request129

129 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 78 Receipt and transmission  

1 The FOJ shall re­ceive for­eign re­quests un­less pro­vi­sion is made for dir­ect trans­mis­sion to the com­pet­ent can­ton­al or fed­er­al ex­ecut­ing au­thor­ity.

2 The FOJ shall sum­mar­ily ex­am­ine wheth­er the re­quest meets the form­al re­quire­ments of this Act and shall for­ward it to the ap­pro­pri­ate ex­ecut­ing au­thor­ity un­less the re­quest clearly ap­pears to be in­ad­miss­ible.

3 If ne­ces­sary, the FOJ shall re­turn the re­quest to the re­quest­ing State for im­prove­ment or com­ple­tion.

4 Re­ceipt and trans­mis­sion of the re­quest to the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity are not sub­ject to ap­peal.

5 The pro­ced­ur­al pro­vi­sions of Art­icle 18 are re­served.

Art. 79 Delegation of execution  

1 If the ex­e­cu­tion of the re­quest ne­ces­sit­ates in­vest­ig­a­tions in more than one can­ton or if it also con­cerns a fed­er­al au­thor­ity, the FOJ may en­trust a single au­thor­ity with its ex­e­cu­tion. Art­icles 44–47, 52 and 53 Crim­PC130 ap­ply by ana­logy.131

2 The FOJ may del­eg­ate all or part of the ex­e­cu­tion of a re­quest to the fed­er­al au­thor­ity which would be com­pet­ent if the of­fence had been com­mit­ted in Switzer­land.

3 The FOJ may also en­trust the ex­e­cu­tion of sup­ple­ment­ary re­quests to the au­thor­ity to which ex­e­cu­tion was del­eg­ated.

4 The des­ig­na­tion of the can­ton­al or fed­er­al au­thor­ity re­spons­ible shall not be sub­ject to ap­peal.

130 SR 312.0

131 Second sen­tence Amended by An­nex 1 No II 13 of the Crim­in­al Pro­ced­ure Code of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 1881; BBl 2006 1085).

Art. 79a Decision of the FOJ  

The FOJ may de­cide wheth­er mu­tu­al as­sist­ance is per­mit­ted and del­eg­ate its ex­e­cu­tion to a can­ton­al au­thor­ity or it­self de­cide on the ex­e­cu­tion if:

a.
the ex­e­cu­tion of the re­quest ne­ces­sit­ates in­vest­ig­a­tions in more than one can­ton;
b.
the com­pet­ent can­ton­al au­thor­ity is un­able to make a de­cision with­in the ap­pro­pri­ate time; or
c.
the cases are com­plex or par­tic­u­larly im­port­ant.
Art. 80 Preliminary examination  

1 The re­quest shall be sub­ject to pre­lim­in­ary ex­am­in­a­tion by the can­ton­al or fed­er­al au­thor­ity re­spons­ible for its ex­e­cu­tion.

2 If the re­quest can­not be gran­ted, the ex­ecut­ing au­thor­ity shall re­turn it to the re­quest­ing au­thor­ity by the same chan­nel through which it was re­ceived.

Art. 80a Consideration and execution  

1 The ex­ecut­ing au­thor­ity shall is­sue a sum­mary rul­ing on wheth­er to con­sider the case and shall or­der the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ures per­mit­ted.

2 It shall ex­ecute the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ures in ac­cord­ance with its own pro­ced­ur­al law.

Art. 80b Participation in the proceedings and access to the files  

1 The per­sons en­titled may par­ti­cip­ate in the pro­ceed­ings and have ac­cess to the files provided this is ne­ces­sary to safe­guard their in­terests.

2 The rights provided for in para­graph 1 may be lim­ited only:

a.
in the in­terest of the for­eign pro­ceed­ings;
b.
for the pro­tec­tion of an im­port­ant leg­al in­terest if the re­quest­ing State so re­quests;
c.
be­cause of the nature or ur­gency of the meas­ures to be taken;
d.
for the pro­tec­tion of im­port­ant private in­terests;
e.
in the in­terest of Swiss pro­ceed­ings.

3 Ac­cess to the files or par­ti­cip­a­tion in the pro­ceed­ings may only be denied in the case of files or pro­ced­ur­al meas­ures for reas­ons of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity.

Art. 80c Simplified execution  

1 The per­sons en­titled, and in par­tic­u­lar the hold­ers of doc­u­ments, in­form­a­tion or as­sets may con­sent to hand­ing them over without form­al­ity at any time pri­or to the con­clu­sion of the pro­ceed­ings. Con­sent is ir­re­voc­able.

2 If all the per­sons en­titled give their con­sent, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall make a writ­ten re­cord there­of and con­clude the pro­ceed­ings.

3 If only some of the doc­u­ments, in­form­a­tion or as­sets re­quired are handed over, the or­din­ary pro­ceed­ings shall be fol­lowed for the re­main­ing part.

Art. 80d Conclusion of the mutual assistance proceedings  

When the ex­ecut­ing au­thor­ity de­term­ines that the re­quest is com­pletely or par­tially ex­ecuted, it shall is­sue a rul­ing giv­ing reas­ons on wheth­er mu­tu­al as­sist­ance is gran­ted and to what ex­tent.

Art. 80dbis Early transmission of information and evidence 132  

1 The com­pet­ent can­ton­al or fed­er­al au­thor­ity may by way of ex­cep­tion or­der the early trans­mis­sion of in­form­a­tion or evid­ence gathered be­fore the fi­nal rul­ing is is­sued:

a.
if for­eign in­vest­ig­a­tions in cases re­lat­ing to or­gan­ised crime or ter­ror­ism would be made dis­pro­por­tion­ately dif­fi­cult without this mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ure, in par­tic­u­lar where there is a risk of col­lu­sion or in or­der to safe­guard the con­fid­en­ti­al­ity of the pro­ceed­ings; or
b.
in or­der to avert a ser­i­ous and im­me­di­ate danger, and in par­tic­u­lar the com­mis­sion of a ter­ror­ist of­fence.

2 The in­form­a­tion or evid­ence con­cerned must be con­nec­ted with the pre­ven­tion or the pro­sec­u­tion of an ex­tra­dit­able crim­in­al of­fence.

3 Early trans­mis­sion may be ordered with or without a re­quest be­ing re­ceived. If it is ordered in the ab­sence of a re­quest, the com­pet­ent can­ton­al or fed­er­al au­thor­ity shall trans­mit only the non-per­son­al data re­quired to as­sess the po­s­i­tion, sub­ject to re­ceiv­ing the un­der­tak­ings spe­cified in para­graph 4.

4 Early trans­mis­sion is con­di­tion­al on the re­quest­ing au­thor­ity provid­ing an un­der­tak­ing in ad­vance that:

a.
the in­form­a­tion or evid­ence will be used solely to as­sist with in­vest­ig­a­tions, and un­der no cir­cum­stances for the pur­pose of re­quest­ing, jus­ti­fy­ing or is­su­ing a fi­nal de­cision;
b.
it will in­form the com­pet­ent can­ton­al or fed­er­al au­thor­ity as soon as the for­eign pro­ceed­ings per­mit that the per­son con­cerned may be no­ti­fied of the early trans­mis­sion un­der Art­icle 80m so that he or she can re­spond be­fore the fi­nal rul­ing is is­sued;
c.
it will re­move the in­form­a­tion or evid­ence ob­tained through early trans­mis­sion from the files for the for­eign pro­ceed­ings if mu­tu­al as­sist­ance is re­fused.

5 No­ti­fic­a­tion of the per­son con­cerned shall be de­ferred.

6 No­tice of the in­ter­im rul­ing in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 shall be giv­en to the FOJ without delay and be­fore the early trans­mis­sion. It is not in it­self con­test­able.

132 In­ser­ted by An­nex No II 5 of the FedD of 25 Sept. 2020 on the Ap­prov­al and Im­ple­ment­a­tion of the Coun­cil of Europe Con­ven­tion on the Pre­ven­tion of Ter­ror­ism and its Ad­di­tion­al Pro­tocol and the Strength­en­ing of Crim­in­al Justice In­stru­ments for com­bat­ing Ter­ror­ism and Or­gan­ised Crime, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2021 (AS 2021 360; BBl 2018 6427).

Section 2a Joint Investigation Team133

133 Inserted by Annex No II 5 of the FedD of 25 Sept. 2020 on the Approval and Implementation of the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism and its Additional Protocol and the Strengthening of Criminal Justice Instruments for combating Terrorism and Organised Crime, in force since 1 July 2021 (AS 2021 360; BBl 2018 6427).

Art. 80dter Appointment of a joint investigation team  

1 The can­ton­al or fed­er­al mu­tu­al as­sist­ance au­thor­ity may for a spe­cif­ic pur­pose and in con­sulta­tion with the com­pet­ent for­eign ju­di­cial au­thor­ity ap­point a joint in­vest­ig­a­tion team (JIT) to con­duct or sup­port the con­duct of a crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion in a state par­ti­cip­at­ing in the JIT.

2 A JIT may in par­tic­u­lar be ap­poin­ted in a dif­fi­cult or com­plex crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion that in­volves one or more oth­er states and which re­quires con­sid­er­able re­sources as well as co­ordin­ated and con­cer­ted ac­tion.

3 It may only be ap­poin­ted if a re­quest for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance has been sub­mit­ted by a ju­di­cial au­thor­ity.

4 The JIT must be ap­poin­ted for a lim­ited dur­a­tion. The ap­point­ment may be ex­ten­ded as re­quired.

5 The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall des­ig­nate the per­sons re­spons­ible and the mem­bers of the JIT for its state. The JIT may call on the ser­vices of ex­perts and aux­il­i­ary per­son­nel as re­quired.

6 No­tice of the act of ap­point­ment shall be giv­en to the FOJ in writ­ing.

Art. 80dquater Applicable law  

The JIT’s activ­it­ies are gov­erned by the law of the state in which the in­vest­ig­a­tion is con­duc­ted.

Art. 80dquinquies Accountability  

The rep­res­ent­at­ive of the crim­in­al or mu­tu­al as­sist­ance au­thor­ity in whose state an in­vest­ig­at­ive meas­ure is car­ried out is re­spons­ible for that in­vest­ig­at­ive meas­ure.

Art. 80dsexies Status in relation to criminal and civil liability  

The for­eign per­son re­spons­ible and the for­eign mem­bers of the JIT, as well as the for­eign ex­perts and aux­il­i­ary per­son­nel un­der Art­icle 80dter para­graph 5 are deemed equi­val­ent to the Swiss per­son re­spons­ible and the Swiss mem­bers of the JIT dur­ing an op­er­a­tion on Swiss na­tion­al ter­rit­ory in re­la­tion to any of­fences com­mit­ted against them or that they them­selves com­mit. They are also deemed equi­val­ent to them in re­la­tion to any in­jury, loss or dam­age that they cause dur­ing their op­er­a­tion.

Art. 80dsepties Access to documents, information and evidence  

1 The per­sons re­spons­ible and mem­bers of the JIT shall have ac­cess to:

a.
doc­u­ments and in­form­a­tion that are re­lated to the rel­ev­ant crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion;
b.
evid­ence that has been gathered in the course of the rel­ev­ant crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion.

2 They shall be denied ac­cess to doc­u­ments, in­form­a­tion and evid­ence if a de­cision to that ef­fect has been taken by a per­son re­spons­ible for the JIT or by a crim­in­al or mu­tu­al as­sist­ance au­thor­ity. The fore­go­ing also ap­plies if the doc­u­ments, in­form­a­tion or evid­ence were ob­tained be­fore the JIT was ap­poin­ted.

3 The ex­perts and aux­il­i­ary per­son­nel un­der Art­icle 80dter para­graph 5 shall have ac­cess only to doc­u­ments, in­form­a­tion and evid­ence that are re­quired for them to ful­fil the tasks as­signed to them.

Art. 80docties Early transmission  

The early trans­mis­sion of doc­u­ments, in­form­a­tion and evid­ence that are to loc­ated on Swiss sov­er­eign ter­rit­ory is gov­erned by Art­icle 80dbis.

Art. 80dnovies Confidentiality and data protection  

1 The con­fid­en­ti­al­ity of the in­form­a­tion, in­clud­ing the con­fid­en­ti­al­ity of the in­vest­ig­a­tion, must be pre­served.

2 The pro­tec­tion of per­son­al data is gov­erned by the law of the state in which the in­vest­ig­at­ive meas­ure is car­ried out.

Art. 80ddecies Dealings with the media  

If the bod­ies nor­mally com­pet­ent to do so in the ju­di­cial au­thor­it­ies con­cerned in­tend to is­sue a press re­lease, the Swiss crim­in­al or mu­tu­al as­sist­ance au­thor­ity and its for­eign part­ner au­thor­ity shall dis­cuss the con­tent be­fore­hand.

Art. 80dundecies Costs  

1 The costs of the in­vest­ig­at­ive activ­it­ies shall be borne by the state in which the act con­cerned is car­ried out.

2 The costs re­lated to time spent in the oth­er coun­try, travel and ac­com­mod­a­tion for the per­sons re­spons­ible and the oth­er mem­bers of the JIT shall be borne by their own coun­try.

3 The rooms and the tech­nic­al re­sources re­quired to con­duct the in­vest­ig­at­ive activ­it­ies, such as of­fice space, com­mu­nic­a­tion me­dia or spe­cial equip­ment, shall be provided by the state in which the activ­ity con­cerned is car­ried out.

Art. 80dduodecies Act of appointment  

1 The act of ap­point­ment must in­clude the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion:

a.
the pur­pose of the JIT;
b.
the names of the Swiss and the for­eign crim­in­al or mu­tu­al as­sist­ance au­thor­it­ies;
c.
the names of the per­sons re­spons­ible for each state par­ti­cip­at­ing in the JIT and the names of the oth­er mem­bers of the JIT and their func­tions;
d.
the crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion, in­clud­ing the fac­tu­al cir­cum­stances, that is the sub­ject mat­ter of the crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion, and the of­fences un­der in­vest­ig­a­tion;
e.
the states on whose ter­rit­ory the JIT will con­duct in­vest­ig­a­tions in ac­cord­ance with the rel­ev­ant na­tion­al law;
f.
the dur­a­tion for which the JIT is ap­poin­ted, with the date on which this peri­od ends;
g.
the names of any ex­perts and aux­il­i­ary per­son­nel who are not mem­bers of the JIT, in par­tic­u­lar of those who come from oth­er ser­vices or ad­min­is­trat­ive units in the par­ti­cip­at­ing states, as well as the names of any ex­perts and aux­il­i­ary per­son­nel from Euro­just and Euro­pol;
h.
the pro­ced­ure for deal­ings with the me­dia;
i.
the ar­range­ments for bear­ing the costs of the crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion and in­vest­ig­at­ive activ­it­ies;
j.
the ar­range­ments for bear­ing the costs of time spent in the oth­er coun­try, travel and ac­com­mod­a­tion for the per­sons re­spons­ible, the oth­er mem­bers of the JIT and the ex­perts and aux­il­i­ary per­son­nel;
k.
the tech­nic­al re­sources re­quired to con­duct the op­er­a­tions.

2 The act of ap­point­ment may be amended if the in­vest­ig­a­tions so re­quire. In par­tic­u­lar, fur­ther mem­bers may be ad­ded to the JIT or the time lim­it may be ex­ten­ded.

Section 3 Appeal134

134 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 80e Appeal against the ruling of the executing authority 135  

1 The rul­ing of the ex­ecut­ing can­ton­al or fed­er­al au­thor­ity on the con­clu­sion of the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings to­geth­er with the pre­ced­ing in­ter­im rul­ings shall be sub­ject to ap­peal to the Ap­peals Cham­ber of the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court.

2 In­ter­im rul­ings pre­ced­ing the fi­nal rul­ing may be ap­pealed against sep­ar­ately provided that they cause im­me­di­ate and ir­re­par­able pre­ju­dice through:

a.
the seizure of as­sets or valu­ables; or
b.
the pres­ence of per­sons in­volved in the for­eign pro­ceed­ings.

3 Art­icle 80l para­graphs 2 and 3 ap­plies by ana­logy.

135 Amended by An­nex No 30 of the FA of 17 June 2005 on the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court, in force since 1 Jan. 2007 (AS 2006 2197; BBl 2001 4202).

Art. 80f and 80g136  

136 Re­pealed by An­nex No 30 of the FA of 17 June 2005 on the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2007 (AS 2006 2197; BBl 2001 4202).

Art. 80h Right of appeal  

The fol­low­ing shall be en­titled to ap­peal:

a.
the FOJ;
b.
any per­son who is per­son­ally and dir­ectly af­fected by a mu­tu­al as­sist­ance meas­ure and has a le­git­im­ate in­terest in that meas­ure be­ing an­nulled or mod­i­fied.
Art. 80i Reasons for appeal  

1 The ap­peal may be filed to chal­lenge:

a.
a vi­ol­a­tion of fed­er­al law, in­clud­ing ex­cess­ive use or ab­use of dis­cre­tion;
b.
the in­ad­miss­ible or mani­festly in­cor­rect ap­plic­a­tion of for­eign law in the cases un­der Art­icle 65.

2 ...137

137 Re­pealed by An­nex No 30 of the FA of 17 June 2005 on the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2007 (AS 2006 2197; BBl 2001 4202).

Art. 80k Deadline for appeal  

The dead­line for ap­peal against the fi­nal rul­ing shall be 30 days, or ten days in the case of an in­ter­im rul­ing, from the writ­ten com­mu­nic­a­tion of the rul­ing.

Art. 80l Suspensive effect  

1 Only ap­peals against the fi­nal rul­ing or any oth­er rul­ing au­thor­ising the trans­mis­sion of clas­si­fied in­form­a­tion or the hand­ing over of ob­jects or as­sets to a for­eign State shall have sus­pens­ive ef­fect.138

2 An in­ter­im rul­ing pre­ced­ing the fi­nal rul­ing may be ex­ecuted im­me­di­ately.

3 The Ap­peals Cham­ber of the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court may grant sus­pens­ive ef­fect to an in­ter­im rul­ing in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 if the per­son en­titled shows prob­able cause that im­me­di­ate and ir­re­par­able pre­ju­dice as defined in Art­icle 80e, para­graph 2 may res­ult.139

138 Amended by An­nex No 30 of the FA of 17 June 2005 on the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court, in force since 1 Jan. 2007 (AS 2006 2197; BBl 2001 4202).

139 Amended by An­nex No 30 of the FA of 17 June 2005 on the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court, in force since 1 Jan. 2007 (AS 2006 2197; BBl 2001 4202).

Section 4 Special Provisions140

140 Inserted by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 80m Notification of rulings  

1 The ex­ecut­ing au­thor­ity and the ap­pel­late au­thor­ity shall give no­tice of their rul­ings to:

a.
the en­titled per­son liv­ing in Switzer­land;
b.
the en­titled per­son liv­ing abroad and with an ad­dress for ser­vice of doc­u­ments in Switzer­land.

2 The right to no­ti­fic­a­tion shall end when the rul­ing con­clud­ing the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings be­comes leg­ally en­force­able.

Art. 80n Right to inform  

1 Hold­ers of doc­u­ments have the right to in­form their cli­ents of the ex­ist­ence of the re­quest and of all the facts re­lat­ing thereto un­less the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity has, as an ex­cep­tion, ex­pressly pro­hib­ited this and made ref­er­ence to Art­icle 292 of the Swiss Crim­in­al Code141 and the pen­al­ties that it car­ries.

2 The per­son en­titled who in­ter­venes in pending pro­ceed­ings may no longer chal­lenge rul­ings that have be­come leg­ally en­force­able.

Art. 80o Inquiry addressed to the requesting State  

1 If ad­di­tion­al in­form­a­tion is ne­ces­sary, the ex­ecut­ing or the ap­pel­late au­thor­ity shall re­quest the FOJ to ob­tain it from the re­quest­ing State.

2 If ne­ces­sary, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall sus­pend deal­ing with all or part of the re­quest and rule on the points that may be dealt with based on the doc­u­ments avail­able.

3 The FOJ shall give the re­quest­ing State an ap­pro­pri­ate dead­line by which to re­spond. If the dead­line giv­en is not re­spec­ted, the re­quest for mu­tu­al as­sist­ance shall be ex­amined based on the doc­u­ments avail­able.

Art. 80p Conditions subject to acceptance  

1 The ex­ecut­ing and the ap­pel­late au­thor­ity as well as the FOJ may make the grant­ing of mu­tu­al as­sist­ance wholly or partly sub­ject to cer­tain con­di­tions.

2 The FOJ shall com­mu­nic­ate the con­di­tions to the re­quest­ing State when the rul­ing on the grant­ing and the ex­tent of the mu­tu­al as­sist­ance is fi­nal and shall give it an ap­pro­pri­ate dead­line by which to ac­cept or re­fuse. If the dead­line giv­en is not re­spec­ted, mu­tu­al as­sist­ance may be gran­ted on the points that are not sub­ject to con­di­tions.

3 The FOJ shall ex­am­ine if the re­sponse of the re­quest­ing State sat­is­fies the con­di­tions set.

4 The rul­ing of the FOJ is sub­ject to an ap­peal to the Ap­peals Cham­ber of the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court with­in ten days of its no­tice be­ing giv­en in writ­ing. The de­cision of the Ap­peals Cham­ber is fi­nal.142

142 Amended by An­nex No 30 of the FA of 17 June 2005 on the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court, in force since 1 Jan. 2007 (AS 2006 2197; BBl 2001 4202).

Art. 80q Costs  

The re­quest­ing State shall be charged for:

a.
the re­mu­ner­a­tion of ex­perts;
b.
the re­turn of ob­jects or as­sets for the pur­pose of resti­tu­tion to the per­son en­titled.
Art. 8184143  

143 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, with ef­fect from 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997 114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Part Four Transfer of Proceedings

Chapter 1 Conditions

Section 1 Prosecution in Switzerland on behalf of another State

Art. 85 Principle  

1 At the re­quest of the State in which the of­fence was com­mit­ted, Switzer­land may pro­sec­ute on its be­half an of­fence com­mit­ted abroad if:

a.
ex­tra­di­tion is not per­mit­ted;
b.
the de­fend­ant has to face charges in Switzer­land for oth­er more ser­i­ous of­fences; and
c.
it is guar­an­teed that the re­quest­ing State will not pro­sec­ute him for the same of­fence after ac­quit­tal or com­plet­ing a sen­tence in Switzer­land.

2 A for­eign na­tion­al who is ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land may also be pro­sec­uted in Switzer­land if his ex­tra­di­tion can­not be jus­ti­fied and pro­sec­u­tion in Switzer­land seems ap­pro­pri­ate with re­gard to his per­son­al situ­ation and so­cial re­hab­il­it­a­tion.

3 These pro­vi­sions do not ap­ply if the of­fence is sub­ject to Swiss jur­is­dic­tion on the basis of an­oth­er pro­vi­sion.144

144 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 86 Applicable law  

1 The of­fence shall be judged ac­cord­ing to Swiss law as if it had been com­mit­ted in Switzer­land.

2 The for­eign law ap­plies if it is more le­ni­ent. The court may im­pose only the sen­tences provided for by Swiss law.

3 Pro­ceed­ings in the ab­sence of the de­fend­ant are not per­mit­ted.

Art. 87 Jurisdiction 145  

If Swiss jur­is­dic­tion is not yet es­tab­lished, it shall be de­term­ined in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32 Crim­PC146.

145 Amended by An­nex 1 No II 13 of the Crim­in­al Pro­ced­ure Code of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 1881; BBl 2006 1085).

146 SR 312.0

Section 2 Transfer to Foreign States

Art. 88 Conditions 147  

An­oth­er State may be re­ques­ted to pro­sec­ute an of­fence sub­ject to Swiss jur­is­dic­tion if its laws al­low the pro­sec­u­tion and ju­di­cial pun­ish­ment of the of­fence and if:

a.
the de­fend­ant is present there and his ex­tra­di­tion to Switzer­land is in­ap­pro­pri­ate or not per­mit­ted; or
b.
he is ex­tra­dited to this State and the trans­fer of the pro­sec­u­tion of­fers the pro­spect of bet­ter so­cial re­hab­il­it­a­tion.

147 Amended by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, in force since 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 89 Effects  

1 If an­oth­er State pro­sec­utes the of­fence, the Swiss au­thor­it­ies may not take fur­ther meas­ures against the de­fend­ant for the same of­fence:

a.
un­less the re­ques­ted State has giv­en no­tice that it is not in a po­s­i­tion to con­clude the pro­sec­u­tion; or
b.
if, ac­cord­ing to the de­cision made in the re­ques­ted State, the con­di­tions of Art­icle 5 let­ter a or b are met.

2 The ef­fect of the time lim­it­a­tion pro­vi­sions un­der Swiss law is sus­pen­ded provided the pro­ceed­ings in­clud­ing en­force­ment of the sen­tence are on­go­ing in the re­ques­ted State.148

3 If the de­fend­ant was ex­tra­dited to the re­ques­ted State for oth­er of­fences, this State need not ob­serve the con­di­tions of ex­tra­di­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 38 provided it grants the re­quest for pro­sec­u­tion.

148 The sus­pen­sion of the ef­fects of the time lim­it­a­tion pro­vi­sions has been ab­ol­ished by Art. 97 ff. of the Swiss Crim­in­al Code (SR 311.0) and time lim­its for ex­e­cu­tion have been re­placed by an ex­ten­sion of the reg­u­lar time lim­it (AS 20063459; BBl 19991979).

Chapter 2 Procedure

Art. 90 Documents  

In ad­di­tion to the doc­u­ments spe­cified in Art­icle 28 para­graph 3, the re­cord of crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings as well as any evid­en­tiary pro­duc­tions must be en­closed with the re­quest.

Art. 91 Decision on the request  

1 The FOJ shall de­cide on wheth­er to ac­cept the for­eign re­quest after con­sult­ing the pro­sec­ut­ing au­thor­it­ies.

2 If it ac­cepts the re­quest, it shall trans­mit the file to the pro­sec­ut­ing au­thor­ity and no­ti­fy the re­quest­ing State and the per­son con­cerned.

3 The de­cision does not cre­ate an ob­lig­a­tion to in­sti­tute crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings.

4 The FOJ may re­fuse to as­sume re­spons­ib­il­ity for the pro­sec­u­tion if there is good cause not to do so or if the ser­i­ous­ness of the of­fence does not jus­ti­fy it.

Art. 92 Foreign investigative measures  

Any in­vest­ig­at­ive meas­ure car­ried out by the au­thor­it­ies of the re­quest­ing State un­der its law shall be con­sidered equi­val­ent to a cor­res­pond­ing Swiss in­vest­ig­at­ive meas­ure.

Art. 93 Costs  

1 The costs of the pro­ceed­ings set by the re­quest­ing State shall be ad­ded to the costs of the pro­ceed­ings in Switzer­land and col­lec­ted. They are not re­fun­ded to the re­quest­ing State.

2 The can­tons shall have a right of dis­pos­al over any fines paid and, sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions of the Fed­er­al Act of 19 March 2004149 on the Di­vi­sion of For­feited As­sets, over for­feited ob­jects.150

3 The re­ques­ted State shall be no­ti­fied of the costs of the pro­ceed­ings in­curred in Switzer­land if the re­ques­ted State takes over the pro­sec­u­tion. Their re­im­burse­ment shall not be re­ques­ted.

149 SR 312.4

150 Amended by An­nex No 2 of the FA of 19 March 2004 on the Di­vi­sion of For­feited As­sets, in force since 1 Au­gust 2004 (AS 2004 3503; BBl 2002 441).

Part Five Enforcement of Criminal Judgments

Chapter 1 Conditions

Section 1 Enforcement by Switzerland

Art. 94 Principle  

1 Fi­nal and en­force­able crim­in­al judg­ments from an­oth­er State may be en­forced at that State's re­quest if:

a.
the con­victed per­son is ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land or has to face charges here for a ser­i­ous of­fence;
b.
the sub­ject of the con­vic­tion is an of­fence com­mit­ted abroad which, if com­mit­ted in Switzer­land, would be pun­ish­able here; and
c.
en­force­ment in Switzer­land seems to be ap­pro­pri­ate for one of the reas­ons spe­cified in Art­icle 85 para­graphs 1 and 2 or likely to be barred in the re­quest­ing State.

2 Sen­tences im­posed abroad shall be ex­ecuted provided they do not ex­ceed the max­im­um pen­alty provided by Swiss law for a cor­res­pond­ing of­fence. Sen­tences that re­main be­low the min­im­um pen­alty ac­cord­ing to Swiss law may be ex­ecuted.

3151

4 Fines as well as costs arising from pro­ceed­ings un­der Art­icle 63 may also be en­forced if the con­victed per­son is ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent abroad but has as­sets at his dis­pos­al in Switzer­land and if the re­quest­ing State grants re­cipro­city.

151 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 4 Oct. 1996, with ef­fect from 1 Feb. 1997 (AS 1997 114; BBl 1995 III 1).

Art. 95 Inadmissibility of the enforcement order  

1 The or­der per­mit­ting en­force­ment (ex­equatur) may not be is­sued if:

a.152
the con­vic­tion took place at a time when, un­der Swiss law, the pro­sec­u­tion would have been time barred;
b.
the sen­tence would have been time barred un­der Swiss law if a Swiss au­thor­ity had im­posed it at the same time; or
c.
the of­fence is also sub­ject to Swiss jur­is­dic­tion and no sen­tence could be im­posed un­der Swiss law for oth­er reas­ons.

2 De­cisions on costs shall be de­clared en­force­able only if the costs are to be paid to the State.

152 The amend­ment in ac­cord­ance with Art. 97 ff. of the Swiss Crim­in­al Code (SR 311.0) con­tains a lim­it­a­tion sys­tem (AS 2006 3459; BBl 1999 1979).

Art. 96 Refusal to enforce  

The court shall re­fuse to en­force in whole or in part if:

a.
the con­victed per­son has in­curred a sen­tence in­volving depriva­tion of liberty in Switzer­land for oth­er of­fences and en­force­ment as re­ques­ted would res­ult in an ob­vi­ously more severe pun­ish­ment than if the of­fences taken as a whole were judged in Switzer­land; or
b.
the ex­e­cu­tion of any of the ac­cess­ory crim­in­al meas­ures in Switzer­land is not per­mit­ted, or
c.
it is of the opin­ion that the con­victed per­son has good reas­on to op­pose the en­force­ment of a judg­ment or pen­alty or­der that was is­sued in his ab­sence and which is no longer sub­ject to a right of ob­jec­tion or ap­peal un­der the law of the re­quest­ing State.
Art. 97 Binding force of the findings in fact  

In as­sess­ing crim­in­al li­ab­il­ity and the pos­sib­il­ity of pro­sec­u­tion un­der Swiss law, the court shall be bound to the find­ings in fact on which the de­cision re­lies. If they do not suf­fice, the gath­er­ing of evid­ence may be ordered.

Art. 98 Effects of enforcement  

If Switzer­land as­sumes re­spons­ib­il­ity for en­force­ment, no crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings against the con­victed per­son for the same of­fence may be in­sti­tuted or con­tin­ued here.

Art. 99 Use of Swiss institutions by foreign States  

1 If the con­di­tions of Art­icle 94 para­graph 1 are not met, sen­tences in­volving re­stric­tion of liberty that have been im­posed on a non-Swiss na­tion­al in an­oth­er State may be en­forced in Switzer­land un­der Swiss law if the oth­er State can­not ex­ecute them it­self.

2 In this case, the fi­nal and en­force­able for­eign de­cision shall con­sti­tute the leg­al basis for the re­stric­tion of the con­victed per­son’s liberty.

3 If per­sons are sur­rendered to Switzer­land in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1, then un­less ar­range­ments to the con­trary have been made with the com­pet­ent au­thor­it­ies of the sur­ren­der­ing State, they may neither be pro­sec­uted nor pun­ished nor ex­tra­dited to a third State by the Swiss au­thor­it­ies for of­fences that they com­mit­ted be­fore their sur­render and that were not the sub­ject of their con­vic­tion. These ef­fects shall ex­pire ten days after re­lease on pa­role or fi­nal re­lease from the in­sti­tu­tion.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the de­tails.

Section 2 Transfer to a Foreign State

Art. 100 Principle  

An­oth­er State may be re­ques­ted to en­force a Swiss crim­in­al judg­ment if:

a.
it is cer­tain to ac­cept the bind­ing force of the judg­ment in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 97; and
b.
the trans­fer of en­force­ment is likely to im­prove the pro­spects of the so­cial re­hab­il­it­a­tion of the con­victed per­son or if Switzer­land can­not ob­tain his ex­tra­di­tion.
Art. 101 Conditions for transfer  

1 The con­victed per­son who is de­tained in Switzer­land may only be trans­ferred with a view to en­force­ment of the judg­ment un­der Art­icle 100 if he agrees and if the re­ques­ted State is ex­pec­ted to ac­cept the con­di­tions set by the FOJ.

2 The con­victed per­son may be trans­ferred without his con­sent if an in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment rat­i­fied by Switzer­land so provides. In this case the con­di­tions and ef­fects of the trans­fer are reg­u­lated ex­clus­ively by the said in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment.153

153 In­ser­ted by art. 2 of the FD of 19 Dec. 2003, in force since 1 Oct. 2004 (AS 2004 41614162; BBl 2002 4340).

Art. 102 Effects of transfer  

1 If an­oth­er State en­forces the crim­in­al judg­ment, the Swiss au­thor­ity shall aban­don en­force­ment provided the re­ques­ted State has not giv­en no­tice that it will not con­clude it.

2 The con­victed per­son may be taken in­to cus­tody so as to en­sure his trans­fer.

3 Art­icle 89 para­graphs 2 and 3 ap­ply by ana­logy.

Chapter 2 Procedure

Section 1 Request

Art. 103 Documents  

In ad­di­tion to the doc­u­ments spe­cified in Art­icle 28 para­graph 3, the fol­low­ing shall be en­closed with a re­quest:

a.
the ori­gin­al or an of­fi­cially au­then­tic­ated copy of the judg­ment with a cer­ti­fic­ate at­test­ing that it is leg­ally en­force­able;
b.
a cer­ti­fic­ate at­test­ing the peri­od of de­ten­tion un­der­gone in the re­quest­ing State;
c.
if the re­ques­ted State so re­quests, the ori­gin­al or of­fi­cially au­then­tic­ated copy of the crim­in­al file.
Art. 104 Decision on the request  

1 After con­sult­ing with the au­thor­ity which will ex­ecute the re­quest, the FOJ shall de­cide wheth­er to ac­cept the for­eign re­quest. If it ac­cepts, it shall con­vey the file and its opin­ion to the ex­ecut­ing au­thor­ity and in­form the re­quest­ing State. Art­icle 91 para­graph 4 ap­plies by ana­logy.

2 If there is Swiss jur­is­dic­tion and if a sen­tence which is more severe than the one provided by Swiss law was im­posed abroad, the pro­sec­u­tion may be taken over in­stead of the en­force­ment of the judg­ment if the re­quest­ing State so re­quests.

Section 2 Procedure of Exequatur

Art. 105 Competent judge 154  

The com­pet­ent court un­der Art­icle 32 Crim­PC155 shall in­form the con­victed per­son of the ap­plic­able pro­ced­ure, hear him on the mat­ter, as well as his coun­sel, and de­cide on en­force­ment.

154 Amended by An­nex 1 No II 13 of the Crim­in­al Pro­ced­ure Code of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 1881; BBl 2006 1085).

155 SR 312.0

Art. 106 Declaration of exequatur  

1 The court shall ex­am­ine ex of­fi­cio wheth­er the con­di­tions for en­force­ment are met and gath­er the ne­ces­sary evid­ence.

2 If the con­di­tions are met, the court shall de­clare that the de­cision may be en­forced and take the meas­ures ne­ces­sary for en­force­ment.

3 The de­cision shall be made in the form of a judg­ment con­tain­ing a state­ment of the ra­tionale there­for. Can­ton­al law shall provide for an ap­peal.

Section 3 Enforcement

Art. 107 Execution of the sentence  

1 The sen­tence de­term­ined by the court shall be ex­ecuted in ac­cord­ance with Swiss law.

2 Ex­e­cu­tion shall be dis­con­tin­ued if the de­cision is no longer en­force­able in the re­quest­ing State.

3 If en­force­ment relates solely to a de­cision on costs, the amounts col­lec­ted after de­duc­tion of the costs in­curred shall be trans­ferred to the re­quest­ing State if it guar­an­tees re­cipro­city.

Art. 108 Costs  

In ad­di­tion to the costs for the ex­e­cu­tion of the sen­tence, the costs of ex­equatur pro­ceed­ings and oth­er en­force­ment meas­ures shall also be re­garded as costs in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 31.

Diese Seite ist durch reCAPTCHA geschützt und die Google Datenschutzrichtlinie und Nutzungsbedingungen gelten.

Feedback
Laden