Swiss Criminal Code

1. A per­son in ad­dress­ing a third party, and know­ing his al­leg­a­tions to be un­true, makes an ac­cus­a­tion against or casts sus­pi­cion on an­oth­er of dis­hon­our­able con­duct, or of oth­er con­duct that shall be li­able to dam­age an­oth­er's repu­ta­tion,

any per­son who dis­sem­in­ates such ac­cus­a­tions or sus­pi­cions, know­ing them to be un­true,

shall be li­able on com­plaint to a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing three years or to a mon­et­ary pen­alty.

2. If the of­fend­er has ac­ted sys­tem­at­ic­ally to un­der­mine the good repu­ta­tion of an­oth­er, a cus­todi­al sen­tence of from one month to three years or a mon­et­ary pen­alty of not less than 30 daily pen­alty units shall be im­posed.²³⁴

3. If the of­fend­er re­cants his state­ment be­fore the court on the grounds that it is un­true, the court may im­pose a more le­ni­ent pen­alty. The court must provide the per­son harmed with a doc­u­ment con­firm­ing the re­cant­a­tion.