Despite resistance: legal commission does not want to let the statute of limitations expire on murder
Published: Tuesday, Oct 8th 2024, 17:40
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Murders committed after January 1, 1995 should no longer be time-barred in Switzerland. The Legal Affairs Committee of the Council of States (RK-S) decided by 5 votes to 4 to submit a controversial draft to the Council to enshrine the statute of limitations for murder in the Swiss Criminal Code, as it announced on Tuesday.
The proposal is based on a state initiative of the canton of St. Gallen. A consultation was carried out on this in the first half of 2024. The majority of respondents rejected the idea of a statute of limitations for murder. Nevertheless, the RK-S is now sticking to the proposal. The consultation in the Council of States is due to take place in spring 2025.
The controversial discussions in the commission have so far mainly revolved around the interests of victims' relatives in clarification and punishment, which also exist decades after the crime, and the significance of the statute of limitations for the restoration of legal peace. According to the Commission, the amendment would not apply retroactively to crimes committed before 1995.
For the time being, the committee has put aside a motion to extend the statute of limitations to sexual abuse of minors. It would like to examine the issue in greater depth and is awaiting a statement from the Federal Council.
The canton of St. Gallen had called for "no statute of limitations for serious criminals" and argued that, thanks to technology such as DNA analysis, perpetrators could be convicted long after a crime had been committed. Today, crimes punishable by life imprisonment are time-barred after thirty years.
The majorities in the Councils were narrow. The Council of States initially rejected the St. Gallen initiative, but the National Council then approved it by 90 votes to 89 with 10 abstentions. In a second attempt in December 2021, the Council of States finally approved the initiative by 21 votes to 20.
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