Zurich High Court overturns judgment against Pierin Vincenz
Published: Tuesday, Feb 20th 2024, 20:10
Updated At: Tuesday, Feb 20th 2024, 20:10
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The Zurich High Court has overturned the first-instance verdict against former Raiffeisen CEO Pierin Vincenz. The indictment was too verbose, which made the defense more difficult.
In April 2022, the Zurich District Court sentenced Vincenz and four business partners to several years' imprisonment in some cases. The parties appealed this verdict to the Zurich High Court, which had originally planned to deal with the case in July 2024.
However, this appeal hearing will not take place, as the Zurich High Court announced on Tuesday: it overturned the first-instance verdict due to "serious procedural errors" and referred the criminal proceedings back to the public prosecutor's office. The latter must revise the charges and then resubmit them to the first instance, the district court.
"Unnecessarily verbose in places"
The Supreme Court classified the principle of indictment as violated: an accused person must be able to recognize from the indictment what they are accused of so that they can prepare their defence, according to the ruling. This could make it impossible not only if the indictment is too brief, but also if it is too thick.
The 356-page indictment in the Vincenz case is repetitive in parts, regularly cites irrelevant events, previous histories and background information and is unnecessarily verbose in places, the High Court found. It therefore came close to being an inadmissible statement of reasons and, as a legal document, bordered on an actual first plea.
In addition, certain offenses remained partially undefined and generalized. These would first have to be extracted from the indictment. However, this is not the task of the accused or the court. This leaves the High Court with only one conclusion: "Overall, the indictment does not meet the requirements."
The fact that only excerpts from the indictment were translated for a French-speaking defendant was also insufficient, according to the High Court. This constituted a serious violation of the right to be heard and the principle of fairness.
No statement on the question of guilt
The decision to refer the case back to the public prosecutor's office is a purely technical one: the Zurich High Court did not comment on the question of guilt or innocence in its ruling. The assets remain seized for the time being.
The district court of first instance will then deal with the content of the allegations - if and after a new indictment is received.
This additional round, even if it will take some time, should not play a role with regard to any statute of limitations for offenses. If there is a first-instance judgment, the facts of the case cannot become time-barred. And even if this first judgment is later overturned, the time limit does not start to run again according to federal court case law, as the High Court states in its ruling.
The Zurich public prosecutor's office, meanwhile, will file an appeal against the ruling with the Federal Supreme Court, as it announced on Tuesday evening. The public prosecutor's office does not share the opinion of the High Court that the right to be heard was violated in the indictment. Moreover, an extremely costly repetition of the entire first-instance proceedings was not appropriate, the public prosecutor's office stated.
In response to the accusation that the indictment was too detailed, the senior public prosecutor wrote that the public had been able to see for themselves at the hearing before the district court that all parties had understood the indictment and had specifically questioned it. Accordingly, none of the parties had justified their application for referral back to the High Court on the grounds of the detail of the indictment.
Furthermore, the French-speaking defendant's right to translation had not been violated. He had confirmed at the hearing that he had received and understood the indictment and had discussed it with his defense
Up to four-year prison sentences
The Zurich District Court had sentenced Vincenz and his business partners to three years and nine months' imprisonment and four years' imprisonment respectively for fraud and multiple embezzlement. Three other defendants were sentenced to conditional fines. A further person was acquitted and the proceedings against another were discontinued.
The public prosecutor's office accused the former Raiffeisen boss and his partner in particular of secretly investing in companies and then ensuring that these companies were bought up by Raiffeisen Bank, among others. The indictment was too long according to the high court, stating that the two had made millions in profits.
Bernese business lawyer Peter V. Kunz harshly criticized the Zurich judiciary after the first-instance verdict against Pierin Vincenz was overturned. The district court should already have dismissed the indictment, he told the Keystone-SDA news agency on Tuesday. This was a "tragedy" for the judiciary - and even more so for the accused. The lives of the accused are practically on hold. Because their assets have been frozen, they are facing existential questions.
©Keystone/SDA
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