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- Art. 5a FC
- Art. 6 FC
- Art. 10 FC
- Art. 16 FC
- Art. 17 FC
- Art. 20 FC
- Art. 22 FC
- Art. 29a FC
- Art. 30 FC
- Art. 32 FC
- Art. 42 FC
- Art. 43 FC
- Art. 43a FC
- Art. 55 FC
- Art. 56 FC
- Art. 60 FC
- Art. 68 FC
- Art. 75b FC
- Art. 77 FC
- Art. 96 para. 2 lit. a FC
- Art. 110 FC
- Art. 117a FC
- Art. 118 FC
- Art. 123b FC
- Art. 136 FC
- Art. 166 FC
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- Art. 11 CO
- Art. 12 CO
- Art. 50 CO
- Art. 51 CO
- Art. 84 CO
- Art. 143 CO
- Art. 144 CO
- Art. 145 CO
- Art. 146 CO
- Art. 147 CO
- Art. 148 CO
- Art. 149 CO
- Art. 150 CO
- Art. 701 CO
- Art. 715 CO
- Art. 715a CO
- Art. 734f CO
- Art. 785 CO
- Art. 786 CO
- Art. 787 CO
- Art. 788 CO
- Transitional provisions to the revision of the Stock Corporation Act of June 19, 2020
- Art. 808c CO
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- Art. 2 PRA
- Art. 3 PRA
- Art. 4 PRA
- Art. 6 PRA
- Art. 10 PRA
- Art. 10a PRA
- Art. 11 PRA
- Art. 12 PRA
- Art. 13 PRA
- Art. 14 PRA
- Art. 15 PRA
- Art. 16 PRA
- Art. 17 PRA
- Art. 19 PRA
- Art. 20 PRA
- Art. 21 PRA
- Art. 22 PRA
- Art. 23 PRA
- Art. 24 PRA
- Art. 25 PRA
- Art. 26 PRA
- Art. 27 PRA
- Art. 29 PRA
- Art. 30 PRA
- Art. 31 PRA
- Art. 32 PRA
- Art. 32a PRA
- Art. 33 PRA
- Art. 34 PRA
- Art. 35 PRA
- Art. 36 PRA
- Art. 37 PRA
- Art. 38 PRA
- Art. 39 PRA
- Art. 40 PRA
- Art. 41 PRA
- Art. 42 PRA
- Art. 43 PRA
- Art. 44 PRA
- Art. 45 PRA
- Art. 46 PRA
- Art. 47 PRA
- Art. 48 PRA
- Art. 49 PRA
- Art. 50 PRA
- Art. 51 PRA
- Art. 52 PRA
- Art. 53 PRA
- Art. 54 PRA
- Art. 55 PRA
- Art. 56 PRA
- Art. 57 PRA
- Art. 58 PRA
- Art. 59a PRA
- Art. 59b PRA
- Art. 59c PRA
- Art. 62 PRA
- Art. 63 PRA
- Art. 67 PRA
- Art. 67a PRA
- Art. 67b PRA
- Art. 75 PRA
- Art. 75a PRA
- Art. 76 PRA
- Art. 76a PRA
- Art. 90 PRA
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- Vorb. zu Art. 1 FADP
- Art. 1 FADP
- Art. 2 FADP
- Art. 3 FADP
- Art. 5 lit. f und g FADP
- Art. 6 Abs. 6 and 7 FADP
- Art. 7 FADP
- Art. 10 FADP
- Art. 11 FADP
- Art. 12 FADP
- Art. 14 FADP
- Art. 15 FADP
- Art. 19 FADP
- Art. 20 FADP
- Art. 22 FADP
- Art. 23 FADP
- Art. 25 FADP
- Art. 26 FADP
- Art. 27 FADP
- Art. 31 para. 2 lit. e FADP
- Art. 33 FADP
- Art. 34 FADP
- Art. 35 FADP
- Art. 38 FADP
- Art. 39 FADP
- Art. 40 FADP
- Art. 41 FADP
- Art. 42 FADP
- Art. 43 FADP
- Art. 44 FADP
- Art. 44a FADP
- Art. 45 FADP
- Art. 46 FADP
- Art. 47 FADP
- Art. 47a FADP
- Art. 48 FADP
- Art. 49 FADP
- Art. 50 FADP
- Art. 51 FADP
- Art. 54 FADP
- Art. 57 FADP
- Art. 58 FADP
- Art. 60 FADP
- Art. 61 FADP
- Art. 62 FADP
- Art. 63 FADP
- Art. 64 FADP
- Art. 65 FADP
- Art. 66 FADP
- Art. 67 FADP
- Art. 69 FADP
- Art. 72 FADP
- Art. 72a FADP
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- Art. 2 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 3 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 4 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 5 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 6 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 7 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 8 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 9 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 11 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 12 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 25 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 29 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 32 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 33 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
- Art. 34 CCC (Convention on Cybercrime)
FEDERAL CONSTITUTION
CODE OF OBLIGATIONS
FEDERAL LAW ON PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW
LUGANO CONVENTION
CODE OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
CIVIL PROCEDURE CODE
FEDERAL ACT ON POLITICAL RIGHTS
CIVIL CODE
FEDERAL ACT ON CARTELS AND OTHER RESTRAINTS OF COMPETITION
FEDERAL ACT ON INTERNATIONAL MUTUAL ASSISTANCE IN CRIMINAL MATTERS
DEBT ENFORCEMENT AND BANKRUPTCY ACT
FEDERAL ACT ON DATA PROTECTION
SWISS CRIMINAL CODE
CYBERCRIME CONVENTION
- In a nutshell
- I. General
- II. Disregard of an order of the FDPIC or a decision of an appellate authority
- III. Unlawfulness and culpability
- Bibliography
- Materials
In a nutshell
The provision of Art. 63 makes it a criminal offense to intentionally fail to comply with an order of the FDPIC or a decision of an appellate body. To be punishable, the order or decision must be accompanied by a corresponding threat of punishment and it must be sufficiently clear to the addressee from the order or decision what he must do or refrain from doing. If this requirement is met, a fine of up to 250,000 Swiss francs may be imposed.
I. General
1 Art. 63 is a disobedience offence designed as a blanket provision. Comparable penal provisions are frequently found in secondary criminal law, albeit with massively lower penalties. As a lex specialis, the provision of Art. 63 takes precedence over the provision of Art. 292 StGB (disobedience of official orders) contained in the core criminal law.
2 The provision of Art. 63 was added to the law only after the consultation. In the opinion of the legislator, recourse to Art. 292 StGB would not have been sufficient because the threat of punishment was too low. In the consultation process, there were various criticisms that the new penal provisions were formulated too openly. Art. 63 now allows the FDPIC to order compliance with obligations under the FADP and to combine this with a threat of punishment. The obligation can thus be specified in the order to the extent that it is sufficiently clear to the addressee what he must do or refrain from doing.
3 The criminal provision of Art. 63 is an official offence.
4 The purpose of the provision of Art. 63 is, on the one hand, to compensate for the omitted penal provisions (concerning reports to the FDPIC) in comparison to the VE-FADP and, on the other hand, to take into account "the questions regarding the principle nulla poena sine lege, as they were frequently raised in the consultation".
5 According to the Federal Council, the solution created by Art. 63 "allows the relevant provisions of the FADP to continue to be drafted in a sufficiently general form without at the same time coming into conflict with the criminal law requirements for the precision of a legal regulation." In addition, according to the Federal Council, it facilitates the work of the competent law enforcement authorities, which would take into account the concerns partially expressed in the consultation.
6 This provision is aimed at the enforcement of orders of the FDPIC within the meaning of Art. 51, which the FDPIC issues after an investigation has been carried out, and the enforcement of decisions of appeal bodies. In contrast, the threat of a fine under Art. 60 para. 2 concerns the intentional provision of false information and the intentional refusal to cooperate in an investigation by the FDPIC.
7 The criminal offence of Art. 63 is a special offence: only those who are the addressee of a decision of the FDPIC or of a decision of an appellate authority can be considered as perpetrators. Other persons can at most be considered as instigators. If the order of the FDPIC or the decision of an appellate body is addressed to a company, criminal liability arises on the basis of Art. 29 SCC for a management person: The duty incumbent on the company that gives rise to the penalty is attributed to the natural person. Anyone who does not prevent violations by subordinate employees or who does not reverse the effects of such violations also qualifies as a perpetrator (Art. 6 para. 2 and 3 of the Criminal Code in conjunction with Art. 64 para. 1 of the FADP).
II. Disregard of an order of the FDPIC or a decision of an appellate authority
A. Objective facts
1. Order of the FDPIC or decision of an appeal body
8 A punishment under Art. 63 presupposes that a specific person is prescribed a sufficiently concretely described course of conduct in a validly issued and served order or decision, with the threat of a sanction under this provision in the event of non-compliance. There is no obligation on the part of the FDPIC or the appellate bodies to attach the threat of sanctions pursuant to Art. 63 to their orders or decisions. However, in order to make compliance with the rulings or decisions more likely, the FDPIC or the appeal bodies should make regular use of this possibility.
9 An order of the FDPIC means a sovereign act addressed by the FDPIC to a specific person on the basis of Art. 51, by which a specific legal relationship under administrative law is regulated in a legally binding and enforceable manner. It is required - as in the case of Art. 292 StGB - that the order contains a concrete instruction of conduct (to do, to tolerate or to refrain from doing something); a mere declaratory order does not satisfy this requirement. A general order is also not a suitable object of crime. A specific instruction to act includes, for example, an order to adapt or stop a certain processing of personal data or to refrain from disclosing personal data abroad (cf. on the whole OK-Fanger/Oehri on Art. 51 FADP). The order must be "legally existent" (i.e. it must not contain any serious defect that would render it null and void), must have been effectively received by the addressee and must be formally final.
10 A decision of an appellate authority means a judgment of a court that decides on an appeal against an order of the FDPIC, i.e. a judgment of the Federal Administrative Court (Art. 33 lit. d VGG) or of the Federal Supreme Court (Art. 86 para. 1 lit. a BGG).
11 According to Art. 1 SCC, punishment can only be considered if the applicable penal provision satisfies the requirement of certainty. Since Art. 63 itself does not describe the offence, but refers to the order of the FDPIC or the decision of an appellate body, the order or decision that is subject to the penalty must also meet the requirements of the principle of certainty. The principle of legality requires that the obligation imposed in the order or decision is "sufficiently clearly circumscribed" (cf. already above, n. 9); in other words, it must be clear to the addressee of the order or decision what specific conduct is required of him.
2. Non-compliance
12 As an act, the offense under Article 63 requires that the addressee of the order or decision does not comply with the order or decision. What is meant by non-compliance is determined by the content of the order or decision. If, for example, the FDPIC orders a ban on the disclosure of personal data abroad, the disclosure in question constitutes a "failure to comply"; if the perpetrator discloses personal data abroad several times despite the ban, he or she fulfills the elements of the crime under Art. 63 several times.
B. Subjective Elements of the Offence
13 From a subjective point of view, the offense under Art. 63 requires intent, although contingent intent is sufficient. The offender acts with contingent intent if, although he does not know with certainty that his conduct will violate the order or decision, he accepts or accepts that he may commit a violation.
III. Unlawfulness and culpability
Cf. OK-Gassmann, Art. 60 FADP, n. 26 f.
Bibliography
Häfelin Ulrich/Müller Georg/Uhlmann Felix, Allgemeines Verwaltungsrecht, 8. Aufl., Zürich 2020.
Riedo Christof/Boner Barbara, Kommentierung zu Art. 292 StGB, in: Niggli Marcel Alexander/Wiprächtiger Hans (Hrsg.), Basler Kommentar, Strafrecht (StGB/JStGB), 4. Aufl., Basel 2018.
Rosenthal David/Gubler, Seraina, Die Strafbestimmungen des neuen DSG, SZW 1/2021, S. 52 ff.; Wohlers Wolfgang, Kommentierung zu Art. 63 DSG, in: Baeriswyl Bruno/Pärli Kurt/Blonski, Dominika (Hrsg.), Stämpflis Handkommentar, Datenschutzgesetz, 2. Aufl., Bern 2023.
Materials
Botschaft zum Bundesgesetz über die Totalrevision des Bundesgesetzes über den Datenschutz und die Änderung weiterer Erlasse zum Datenschutz vom 15.9.2017, BBl 2017 S. 6941 ff. (zit. Botschaft 2017), abrufbar unter https://www.admin.ch/opc/de/federal-gazette/2017/6941.pdf, besucht am 8.8.2023.
Erläuternder Bericht des Bundesamts für Justiz BJ zum Vorentwurf für das Bundesgesetz über die Totalrevision des Datenschutzgesetzes und die Änderung weiterer Erlasse zum Datenschutz vom 21.12.2016, abrufbar unter https://www.bj.admin.ch/dam/bj/de/data/staat/gesetzgebung/datenschutzstaerkung/vn-ber-d.pdf.download.pdf/vn-ber-d.pdf (zit. Erläuternder Bericht VE-DSG), besucht am 8.8.2023.
Vernehmlassung der Kantone betreffend Vorentwurf für das Bundesgesetz über die Totalrevision des Datenschutzgesetzes und die Änderung weiterer Erlasse zum Datenschutz vom 21.12.2016 (zit. Vernehmlassung VE-DSG Kantone), abrufbar unter https://www.bj.admin.ch/dam/bj/de/data/staat/gesetzgebung/datenschutzstaerkung/kantone.pdf.download.pdf/kantone.pdf, besucht am 8.8.2023.