Criminal Law

Depen­ding on which side you are, you will need a dif­fe­rent type of sup­port. As a defen­dant, you need a defence lawy­er; as an inju­red per­son or vic­tim, you need a lawy­er so that you can assert your rights to dama­ges, com­pen­sa­ti­on and satis­fac­tion as a pri­va­te plain­ti­ff. As a law firm for cri­mi­nal law and cri­mi­nal defence, we pro­vi­de you with pro­fes­sio­nal sup­port in the­se matters.


The Cri­mi­nal Order Proceeding
The public prosecutor's office may issue an order of punish­ment against a defen­dant. In this order, it sen­ten­ces the accu­sed per­son for a cri­mi­nal offence and deter­mi­nes the penal­ty. It also deter­mi­nes the cos­ts and com­pen­sa­ti­on. Anyo­ne who does not agree with this order of punish­ment must react within a very short time of 10 days. A quick reac­tion is the­r­e­fo­re cen­tral. Once the 10-day peri­od has expi­red, you can only defend yours­elf against the penal­ty order under very nar­row conditions.


Scan the penal­ty order and print out the pos­tal deli­very histo­ry. To do this, enter the track­ing num­ber at the post office under "Link". You will find this num­ber on the enve­lo­pe (never throw away an enve­lo­pe!) or prin­ted on the penal­ty order.


You can then arran­ge an appoint­ment with us and hand over the files to us. To speed up the who­le pro­cess, you can also send us ever­y­thing by email. After­wards we can inform you about the fur­ther procedure.


You were sum­mo­ned for an interview?
At the very begin­ning of cri­mi­nal pro­cee­dings, the most important thing is to seek advice. The poli­ce and the public prosecutor's office are pro­fes­sio­nals. The poli­ce and the public prosecutor's office hand­le a lar­ge num­ber of cri­mi­nal cases every day. The aut­ho­ri­ties know how to deal with defen­dants, infor­mants or wit­nesses. If you do not deal with the­se aut­ho­ri­ties every day, you usual­ly lack the know­ledge to make the right decisions.


When you are sum­mo­ned, you face an aut­ho­ri­ty and in many cases you do not know exact­ly what is best for you. The­re is no solu­ti­on not to com­ply with the sub­poe­na. If you repea­ted­ly refu­se, the poli­ce will stop you and force you to appear. No mat­ter whe­ther you are the accu­sed per­son or «only» wit­ness or respondent.


The­r­e­fo­re, you should seek advice befo­re making any state­ments. You also have the right to have a lawy­er at your side for each inter­ro­ga­ti­on. If the lawy­er is not imme­dia­te­ly available, you have the right to make a tele­pho­ne call wit­hout super­vi­si­on. You must insist on this, even if the thre­at falls that it will only pro­long everything.


Pene­tra­ti­on service
For urgent cases our office offers an on-call service:
You can find fur­ther infor­ma­ti­on about the on-call ser­vice here: »on-call ser­vice«.


Pro­cee­dings befo­re a dis­trict court or the cri­mi­nal court
Depen­ding on the serious­ness of the accu­sed offence, the case is brought befo­re a dis­trict court or a cri­mi­nal court. Howe­ver, court pro­cee­dings will only take place if the mat­ter can­not be sett­led with a penal­ty order. This is the case if an objec­tion has been rai­sed against a penal­ty order and no other solu­ti­on has been found. Or in the case whe­re a court has to make a man­da­to­ry decis­i­on becau­se the offence is too serious and the sen­tence has to be pro­no­un­ced by a court becau­se of its amount. Anyo­ne who has no expe­ri­ence with the poli­ce, the public prosecutor's offices or the courts is usual­ly depen­dent on a lawy­er. This appli­es equal­ly to vic­tims, inju­red par­ties and defendants.


Vic­tim aid
The Vic­tim Assis­tance Act gives a vic­tim who has been inju­red or har­med by a cri­mi­nal offence (inclu­ding a traf­fic acci­dent) a legal right to vic­tim assis­tance. Vic­tim assis­tance includes coun­sel­ling by the vic­tim coun­sel­ling cent­re for per­sons who­se phy­si­cal, psy­cho­lo­gi­cal or sexu­al inte­gri­ty has been impai­red by a cri­mi­nal offence. The vic­tim coun­sel­ling cent­re offers sup­port in coping with the cur­rent situa­ti­on and what has hap­pen­ed as well as in enfor­cing vic­tims' rights in cri­mi­nal pro­cee­dings and vic­tim sup­port pro­cee­dings. As a vic­tim, you are also entit­led to legal sup­port from a lawy­er, for which the vic­tim sup­port office can issue a cost cre­dit. We can show you in more detail which pos­si­bi­li­ties are available to you in a cli­ent interview.


You can find the can­to­nal vic­tim coun­sel­ling cent­re here: Vic­tim Coun­sel­ling Cent­re of the Can­ton of Lucerne
A list of the Swiss vic­tim sup­port cen­tres can be found here: List of Swiss Vic­tim Assis­tance Units


Offi­ci­al Defense
If you do not have the neces­sa­ry finan­cial means to call in a lawy­er pri­va­te­ly for your defence, you can app­ly for offi­ci­al defence through me. The pre­re­qui­si­te is that your finan­cial means are not suf­fi­ci­ent and that the accu­sed offence is not a mere trif­ling mat­ter. Whe­ther the­se con­di­ti­ons are met, we must cla­ri­fy with you in a cli­ent discussion.


Punish­ment and dri­ving licence 
If you are accu­sed of an offence in road traf­fic, you may be threa­ten­ed with your dri­ving licence being revo­ked by the Road Traf­fic Licen­sing Office. In the event of an acci­dent, a ver­dict of guil­ty also often has an influence on the deter­mi­na­ti­on of claims for dama­ges. The­se cir­cum­s­tances are not known to many of tho­se affec­ted. It is the­r­e­fo­re important to invol­ve a lawy­er as ear­ly as pos­si­ble in cri­mi­nal proceedings.


Penal pro­cee­dings and right of resi­dence in Switzerland
If you are con­fron­ted with cri­mi­nal pro­cee­dings and do not have Swiss citi­zen­ship, the Office for Migra­ti­on will revert to the cri­mi­nal files when reis­suing your resi­dence or sett­le­ment per­mit. The mat­ter is the­r­e­fo­re not yet sett­led once the cri­mi­nal pro­cee­dings have been sett­led. If you are a suspect, I recom­mend that you seek legal advice at an ear­ly stage.


File Inspec­tion
The aut­ho­ri­ties and courts shall enable the par­ties con­cer­ned to inspect the files on the spot at the court. This is asso­cia­ted with time pres­su­re. Com­ple­te inspec­tion of files out­side the aut­ho­ri­ties or courts is only gran­ted to lawy­ers. You can then stu­dy the files tog­e­ther with us in the office. The file can be copied or scan­ned so that you have ever­y­thing you need.