The language of federal criminal proceedings

Article 3 StBOG

A court that sits in Bellinzona and tries cases from all parts of Switzerland needs a rule on the language in which each case is conducted. Article 3 StBOG provides it. The languages of proceedings before the federal criminal authorities are German, French and Italian. The OAG determines the language when it opens the investigation. In doing so it takes into account the language skills of the persons involved in the proceedings, the language of the essential case documents and the language spoken at the place where the first investigative acts were carried out. The language so chosen applies to the entire proceedings, including the trial before the Federal Criminal Court. It may be changed only exceptionally and for important reasons, in particular when proceedings are joined or separated.¹

The Board of Appeal has held that the statutory criteria are not exhaustive and that the resources of the prosecution service may exceptionally be considered as well. It reviews the OAG's choice when a party complains that the wrong language was imposed. In a decision of 2017 the Board upheld a complaint against the choice of German in a case in which the defendant did not speak German, the first investigative act had taken place in French-speaking territory and the essential documents were predominantly in French or English. It fixed French as the language of the proceedings because French met the statutory criteria better at the moment the investigation was opened.² The decision shows that the choice of language is a reviewable legal decision with real consequences for the defence. A defendant who does not understand the language of his own trial depends on interpreters at every stage. A defence lawyer who does not master it must work through translations of the file.

The criteria of Article 3 StBOG explain why the seat of the court does not determine the language of its cases. Most federal investigations are opened in Bern or Zurich, concern persons and companies in German- or French-speaking Switzerland and rely on documents in German, French or English. A money laundering case involving a Geneva bank is conducted in French, a corruption case built on the files of a Zurich company in German. The city of Bellinzona is the place where the court sits and where the trial is held. Italian becomes the language of a federal case only when the investigation begins in Ticino or the Italian-speaking valleys of Graubünden, when the defendants speak Italian or when the essential documents are Italian, which is often the case when the evidence comes from Italian proceedings.

Notes

1. Art. 3 StBOG, as quoted and applied in Federal Criminal Court, Board of Appeal, decision BB.2017.15 (2017), https://entscheidsuche.ch/docs/CH_BSTG/CH_BSTG_001_BB-2017-15_2017-05-25.pdf. ↩
2. Federal Criminal Court, BB.2017.15 (above). ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of August 2025.