Federal Act of 19 March 2010 on the Organisation of the Federal Justice Authorities

Article 63 CJAA - Information
1 The Federal Criminal Court shall inform the public of its precedents.

2 Its decisions shall in principle be published in anonymous form.

3 The Federal Criminal Court shall issue a regulation on the principles of information.

4 It may order the accreditation of court reporters.

Federal Criminal Court Principles of Information Regulation

Article 3 Principle
1 The Court shall inform the public of its precedents (Article 63, para. 1, CJAA) mainly by regular publication of its decisions on the Internet and by drawing up an official compendium containing a selection of landmark rulings (TPF; Decisions of the Swiss Federal Criminal Court).

2 If its proceedings are public, the Court shall give information first by verbal notification of the judgment in accordance with Article 84 paras. 1 and 3 of the Swiss Criminal Procedure Code (CrimPC).

3 Judgments may be inspected at the Court Chancellery for 30 days from service and from lifting of the embargo. Where federal acts contains different access provisions from this regulation, they shall be reserved.

4 On the administration of justice, the Court shall inform the public mainly in the event of important changes in its organisation or staff.

5 The dates and subjects of public hearings shall be communicated via the Internet.

6 In special cases, the Court shall also give information through press releases or, exceptionally, press conferences.



Article 4 Database of decisions
1 In principle, the Court shall publish all its final decisions in its database, accessible on the Internet. Other decisions shall only be published if in the public interest.

2 Decisions can be inspected in their entirety, subject to the anonymisation requirements of Article 6.

Access to the database shall be free of charge.

Article 5 Official compendium of the Court’s decisions
1 The Court shall publish an official compendium of decisions which have entered into force and are of significant legal significance.

The following principles shall apply:

a. a summary of contents (headnote) in the three official languages shall appear at the top of each decision;
b. the essential elements of the situation of fact necessary to understand the legal considerations shall be summarised;
c. only the important legal considerations shall be published.
3 The official compendium “Decisions of the Swiss Federal Criminal Court (FCC)” shall be made available free of charge on the Internet; the printed version shall be available for a fee.

Article 6 Anonymisation
1 The Court shall in principle publish its decisions in anonymous form (Article 63 para. 2 CJAA).

2 The parties’ names may exceptionally be published when the public interest outweighs the private interests of the parties, mainly when the case is notorious (“cause célèbre”) and the names are, in any case, already known to the public.

3 The General Secretariat shall specify the details of anonymisation, responsibilities and procedure in its internal directives.