Swiss Criminal Code

¹ A felony or mis­de­mean­our may also be com­mit­ted by a fail­ure to com­ply with a duty to act.

² A per­son fails to com­ply with a duty to act if he does not pre­vent a leg­al in­terest pro­tec­ted un­der crim­in­al law from be­ing ex­posed to danger or from be­ing harmed even though, due to his leg­al po­s­i­tion, he has a duty to do so, in par­tic­u­lar on the basis of:

a.

the law;

b.

a con­tract;

c.

a risk-bear­ing com­munity entered in­to vol­un­tar­ily; or

d.

the cre­ation of a risk.

³ Any per­son who fails to com­ply with a duty to act shall be li­able to pro­sec­u­tion only if, on the basis of the ele­ments of the of­fence con­cerned, his con­duct is, in the cir­cum­stances, as culp­able as it would have been had he act­ively com­mit­ted the of­fence.

⁴ The court may re­duce the sen­tence.