Swiss Criminal Procedure Code
(Criminal Procedure Code, CrimPC)

¹ Mem­bers of the clergy, law­yers, de­fence law­yers, not­ar­ies, pat­ent at­tor­neys, doc­tors, dent­ists, phar­macists, psy­cho­lo­gists and as­sist­ants to such per­sons may re­fuse to testi­fy in re­la­tion to con­fid­en­tial mat­ters that have been con­fided to them or come to their know­ledge in the course of their pro­fes­sion­al work.⁵⁰

² They must testi­fy if they:

a.

are sub­ject to a duty to re­port; or

b.

are re­lieved of their duty of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity in terms of Art­icle 321 num­ber 2 SCC⁵¹ by the per­son to whom the con­fid­en­tial in­form­a­tion per­tains or through the writ­ten con­sent of the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity.

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

⁴ The pro­vi­sions of the Law­yers Act of 23 June 2000⁵² are re­served.