Case management by the Swiss Office of the Attorney General (OAG) between 2016 and 2020 was “deficient and obsolete”, according to its supervisory body.
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An analysis of 6,400 non-active cases revealed that three out of four proceedings were closed without the defendants having been heard, the supervisory authority said in a press release on Tuesday. In the case of criminal investigations, a hearing was held in only one in ten proceedings.
Even in the case of indictments, the OAG does not systematically conduct hearings, according to the supervisory authority. As a result, some of the defendants are referred to the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona without having been heard by the prosecuting attorneys.
In addition, an analysis of the various divisions in the office showed that in the area of “international criminal law”, no proceedings were opened in 97% of cases. In the economic crime division, almost 90% of proceedings were closed or dismissed.
An analysis of the length of proceedings revealed that the “state protection division” closed 90% of its cases within six months, while the economic crime division took at least three years to close more than half of its cases.
Stefan Blättler, the current Swiss attorney general, took office in 2021 after a turbulent period under his predecessor Michael Lauber from 2012 to 2020. Blättler was recently re-elected by parliament for the period 2024 to 2027.
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