Swiss Criminal Procedure Code
(Criminal Procedure Code, CrimPC)

¹ The dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings shall open the tri­al, an­nounce the com­pos­i­tion of the court and es­tab­lish wheth­er the per­sons summoned are present.

² The court and the parties may then raise pre­lim­in­ary is­sues in par­tic­u­lar re­lat­ing to:

a.

the com­pet­ence of the charge;

b.

pro­ced­ur­al re­quire­ments;

c.

pro­ced­ur­al im­ped­i­ments;

d.

the files and the evid­ence taken;

e.

the ad­mis­sion of the pub­lic to the hear­ing;

f.

the di­vi­sion of the hear­ing.

³ The court de­cides im­me­di­ately on the pre­lim­in­ary is­sues after grant­ing the parties present the right to a fair hear­ing.

⁴ If the parties raise sup­ple­ment­ary is­sues dur­ing the tri­al, the court shall deal with these in the same way as pre­lim­in­ary is­sues.

⁵ The court may ad­journ the tri­al at any time in or­der to deal with pre­lim­in­ary or sup­ple­ment­ary is­sues, and to add to or have the pub­lic pro­sec­utor add to the files or the evid­ence.