Council of States committee no longer wants murder to be time-barred
Published: Tuesday, Jan 9th 2024, 18:00
Back to Live Feed
Murder should no longer be time-barred in Switzerland in future. The responsible committee of the Council of States wants to partially implement a St. Gallen state initiative. Other offenses, however, for which life imprisonment is also threatened, should remain time-barred.
The Legal Affairs Committee of the Council of States (RK-S) has opened a consultation on this until April 16, as announced by the parliamentary services on Tuesday. The committee approved the preliminary draft in the fall by 5 votes to 0 with 6 abstentions.
The issue of the status initiative is controversial in the RK-S. According to the press release, it led to controversial discussions. These revolved around the interests of victims' relatives in clarification and punishment, which continue to exist decades after the crime and which "stand in contrast to the systemic importance of the statute of limitations for the restoration of legal peace", according to the statement.
Another controversial issue was the impact of technological advances such as DNA analysis on the investigation of crimes committed decades ago. The RK-S now does not want to implement the initiative verbatim. In the Criminal Code and the Military Criminal Code, murder is to become statute-barred, but not in juvenile criminal law. However, this should not be the case for other offenses for which life imprisonment is also threatened.
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.
©Keystone/SDA
English 
German 
French 
Spanish 
Arabic