Swiss Criminal Procedure Code
(Criminal Procedure Code, CrimPC)

¹ The court de­cides on pending civil claims in the event that it:

a.

con­victs the ac­cused;

b.

ac­quits the ac­cused and the court is in a po­s­i­tion to make a de­cision.

² The civil claim shall be re­ferred for civil pro­ceed­ings if:

a.

the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings are aban­doned or con­cluded by means of the sum­mary pen­alty or­der pro­ced­ure;

b.

the private claimant has failed to jus­ti­fy or quanti­fy the claim suf­fi­ciently;

c.

the private claimant has failed to lodge se­cur­ity in re­spect of the claim;

d.

the ac­cused has been ac­quit­ted but the court is not in a po­s­i­tion to make a de­cision.

³ If a full as­sess­ment of the civil claim would cause un­reas­on­able ex­pense and in­con­veni­ence, the court may make a de­cision in prin­ciple on the civil claim and refer it for civil pro­ceed­ings. If pos­sible, the court shall rule on minor claims it­self.

⁴ In cases in­volving the vic­tim, the court may firstly de­cide solely on guilt and the pen­alty; there­after the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall, fol­low­ing a fur­ther hear­ing of the parties, rule as a judge sit­ting alone on the civil claim, ir­re­spect­ive of its amount.