The Swiss “Beobachter” magazine reported in 2022 that since the introduction of the new Swiss Code of Criminal Procedure on January 1, 2011, about 90% of all criminal proceedings in Switzerland are now handled without a court trial through penalty orders.
In 2023, the Beobachter awarded the prize for the “sloppiest penalty order of the year” to the Limmattal/Albis public prosecutor’s office.
The Beobachter reported on several problems resulting from the new Swiss Code of Criminal Procedure. At least 20% of the penalty orders are withdrawn after initial release. On March 7, 2022, the Beobachter headlined: “We are looking for the worst order of the year 2022 – join in!”
Comment: At a glance, it is clear in which direction criminal proceedings, which are now only conducted by public prosecutors without judicial assessment, must go.
Therefore, the outcry of the Beobachter, about 11 years after the introduction of the new Code of Criminal Procedure, is not surprising: The inherent problem of the new penalty system would have been foreseeable from the beginning.
In January 2023, the Beobachter named the “sloppiest penalty order” of the year 2022. A jury of three experts assembled by the Beobachter concluded that the Limmattal/Albis public prosecutor’s office of the canton of Zurich would be worthy of this negative award, due to a case that the Beobachter reported on April 1, 2022: “Two days in prison because the public prosecutor’s office was sloppy.”
The idea for this prize is based on the story of a man who spent 75 days in Swiss custody without knowing why: “The great power of the prosecutors.”
However, the Beobachter failed in their attempt to personally present the award to the head of the Limmattal/Albis public prosecutor’s office. In the report of January 26, 2023, “The Beobachter crowns the sloppiest penalty order of the year,” Lukas Lippert noted: “The reception was as frosty as the day. That prosecutor’s office refused on January 26 to accept the negative award for the worst order of the year. Beobachter editor-in-chief Dominique Strebel could not personally hand over the trophy.”
It is regrettable that the Beobachter is now almost the only editorial medium in Switzerland that still critically scrutinizes the police and judiciary. With the possible exception of the state-run Swiss television, all others conveniently look away. The mainstream journalists of the major publishing houses pick the raisins out of the cake of world events. They diligently leave the journalistic bone work in the uncomfortable environment of abuses of power by the state, the police, and the judiciary to whoever. As if there had never been human rights violations in Switzerland!
In the Swiss Canton of Zurich, at least the Justice Commission of the Zurich Cantonal Council is now investigating the issue of abusive penalty orders. The question ist, whether that is enough.
Translated by GPT-4