A summons arrives. “As an accused”, or as a person asked to provide information, or as a private claimant. And then, blankness. No one has told you what happens next, in what order, or what you can demand. Swiss criminal procedure nonetheless follows a precise architecture, set out in the Criminal Procedure Code (CrimPC) and governed by a few guiding principles: the principle of investigation, which requires the authorities to gather evidence both for and against the accused (Art. 6 CrimPC), the presumption of innocence and the benefit of the doubt (Art. 10 CrimPC), and the privilege against self-incrimination. Knowing it is already a way of regaining some control.
The sequence comes in three moments: the preliminary proceedings, the first-instance trial, and the appellate remedies. Step by step.
Preliminary proceedings: police investigation and pre-trial investigation
It all starts with a report. A denunciation (Art. 301 CrimPC), a criminal complaint by the victim for offences prosecuted only on complaint (Art. 30 et seq. SCC), or a police report. The police investigation opens (Art. 306 CrimPC): the police establish the facts, secure traces and evidence, identify and question victims and suspects, carry out arrests, then forward their reports to the public prosecutor (Art. 307 CrimPC).
The public prosecutor controls entry into the proceedings. It opens an investigation where there is sufficient suspicion (Art. 309 para. 1 CrimPC). Failing that, or where there is a procedural bar, it issues a no-proceedings order (Art. 310 CrimPC). Plainly put, the case can die there, or truly begin.
The pre-trial investigation (Art. 308 et seq. CrimPC) is the decisive phase. The public prosecutor takes evidence, orders expert opinions and hearings, and builds the file. Several levers come into play here, and none is trivial.
Your rights at the first hearing. Before any questioning, the authority must inform you that proceedings have been opened, of the offences concerned, and of your right to refuse to make a statement (Art. 158 para. 1 CrimPC). Failure to give that information renders the hearing unusable (Art. 158 para. 2 CrimPC). Silence is not an admission: it is the expression of nemo tenetur, the right not to contribute to one’s own incrimination.
Defence counsel. The accused may instruct counsel of choice at any stage (Art. 129 CrimPC). In certain cases, defence is mandatory (Art. 130 CrimPC): detention exceeding ten days, a custodial sentence of more than one year at stake, among others. The right time to instruct a lawyer is not “after the first hearing, to see how it goes”. It is before.
Pre-trial detention. It requires strong suspicion of a felony or misdemeanour and a specific ground: risk of flight, of collusion or of reoffending (Art. 221 CrimPC). The public prosecutor does not order it alone; it applies to the compulsory measures court, which decides (Art. 224 et seq. CrimPC). Often the first real battle.
How the investigation ends
Notice of imminent closure, final requests for evidence (Art. 318 CrimPC), then the case branches. The outcomes are far from equivalent.
Abandonment of proceedings (Art. 319 CrimPC). For want of sufficient grounds, or on a point of law, the public prosecutor closes the file without indictment. For the accused, the way out through the top.
The summary penalty order (Art. 352 CrimPC). The fast track, and by far the most frequent in practice: the public prosecutor convicts without trial where the facts are admitted or established and the sanction remains contained (a fine, a monetary penalty of up to 180 daily penalty units, or a custodial sentence of up to six months). The trap lies in a deadline. Without an objection within ten days (Art. 354 CrimPC), the order becomes final and stands as a conviction. In one matter, the deadline slipped because the recipient assumed “it would sort itself out”; a final conviction, nothing left to argue. File an objection, even a brief one, and the order, if the prosecutor maintains it, then stands as the indictment before the court (Art. 356 para. 1 CrimPC).
The indictment (Art. 324 CrimPC). For more serious facts, the public prosecutor draws up an indictment. That document frames the trial: under the principle of accusation (Art. 9 CrimPC), the court adjudicates only the facts it describes. Nothing more, nothing else.
The first-instance trial
The trial proper. Appearance, taking of evidence, submissions, closing arguments, the accused’s final word. The court rules on guilt, fixes the sentence where applicable, and decides the civil claims. The judgment is first communicated in its operative part, then reasoned in writing if a party so requests or announces an appeal.
Appellate remedies
An adverse judgment does not exhaust the case. The appeal (Art. 398 et seq. CrimPC) refers the matter to the cantonal court of appeal, which has full power of review over the points challenged (Art. 398 para. 2 CrimPC) and examines the law, the facts and expediency (para. 3); that power narrows where only contraventions were at issue (para. 4). The deadlines run in two stages: notice within ten days of communication of the judgment, then a reasoned statement of appeal within twenty days of notification of the reasoned judgment (Art. 399 CrimPC). Miss the notice, and you lose the appeal.
One safeguard often weighs in the decision to appeal: the prohibition of reformatio in pejus. Where the accused alone appeals, the court may not worsen their position (Art. 391 para. 2 CrimPC), save for new facts unknown to the trial court.
Alongside the appeal, the objection-based complaint (Art. 393 et seq. CrimPC) targets other decisions and procedural acts. Review (Art. 410 et seq. CrimPC) reopens, on strict conditions, a case finally adjudicated, typically on new facts or evidence. At the end of the chain, the appeal in criminal matters to the Federal Supreme Court (Art. 78 et seq. FSCA) reviews the law, not the facts, save for arbitrariness in their finding.
The practical essentials
Two reflexes weigh on the outcome more than anything else. A lawyer early, before the first hearing if possible, because what is said there shapes the rest. And no deadline left to run, above all the ten days for objecting to a summary penalty order, which turn a debatable conviction into a settled one.
The strategy as such, the taking of evidence, the discussion with the public prosecutor, is built file by file.
Going further
Sentinel Legal acts in criminal defence and white-collar criminal procedure, in Geneva. To discuss a specific situation: +41 22 512 76 00 or via the contact form.
This article is provided for information only and does not constitute legal advice. Each situation calls for its own analysis; for a specific matter, consult a lawyer.