Taking of Evidence in Switzerland

Switzerland is organized as a federation of twenty-six partially sovereign states known as cantons. Most Swiss substantive law is federal, while the procedural rules and the organization of the judiciary have been the domain of the cantons for more than a century. Thus, while the cantonal courts hav...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inFDCC quarterly Vol. 61; no. 1; p. 17
Main Authors Lang, Christian, Rossire, Eliane
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Tampa Federation of Defense & Corporate Counsel, Inc 01.10.2010
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Summary:Switzerland is organized as a federation of twenty-six partially sovereign states known as cantons. Most Swiss substantive law is federal, while the procedural rules and the organization of the judiciary have been the domain of the cantons for more than a century. Thus, while the cantonal courts have generally been applying federal law, they were governed by their own procedural rules. This procedure is about to change. On Jan 1, 2011, the Federal Civil Procedure Code (Zivilprozessordnung, or ZPO) and the Federal Criminal Procedure Code (Strafprozessordnung, or StPO) will take effect, derogating the corresponding cantonal statutes. This Article discusses permissible and impermissible means of taking evidence under Swiss law, with particular attention being paid to the stark differences between the Swiss rules and the far more permissive evidence gathering rules of the US.
ISSN:1544-9947