The revision of the criminal law on international judicial assistance, and the law related to the Treaty on judicial assistance between Switzerland and the USA, were debated at length by the Parliament on Wednesday 20 December. By and large an agreement was reached to simplify and shorten the procedures of judicial assistance, by means of limiting the appeal mechanisms. These mechanisms , which were put in place to preserve the rights of the people concerned by the procedures, have been very often diverted in the past from their original purpose and simply used to slow down the procedure, either by the party accused of criminal activities or the depositories of the financial proceeds of these activities. To avoid this, the Parliament has further decided to accept appeals only from the persons who are individually and directly the subject of the request for judicial assistance. And last, despite the opposition of the federal government, it has also voted to impose on the Cantons a maximum period of nine months for handling requests for judicial assistance.

The major discussions concentrated on an article proposed by the government to provide the Swiss judicial authorities with the right to transfer spontaneously to the foreign authorities, the evidence collected during their own investigations, but it excluded from this right information covered by the bank secrecy rules. The majority of the Commission on the contrary, was in favour of a wider right which would not restrict information eligible for transmission but it agreed to limit this right to major cases, of an international nature, involving a State which is signatory to a treaty of mutual judicial assistance in criminal matters with Switzerland. Three votes were needed for the members of Parliament to finally adopt the Government proposal and hence limit information transmitted spontaneously to that which is not covered by the bank secrecy.

Furthermore, the Parliament refused to extend judicial assistance to tax evasion cases, as requested by a small minority. Only tax fraud (involving cheating or forgery of documents) is considered as a criminal offense in Switzerland and as such is already covered by the existing law on judicial assistance.

For any further information on this topic, please contact Deloitte & Touche SA, Geneva, Marie-Christine Chalon, Senior Manager in charge of Fraud Prevention and Fraud investigations (41-22-788 02 46).

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