Trends and Developments
Administrative Criminal Law under the Spotlight
Introduction
In the Swiss legal system, administrative law plays a
predominant role. This can be explained by the ever-increasing
intervention of the state in social and economic life, conferring
rights on private individuals and, in return, imposing obligations
on them.
Administrative law very often includes criminal provisions that
make it possible to punish transgressions when specific conditions
are met. In this case, we speak of administrative criminal law
(lato sensu), which covers all the criminal provisions set forth in
laws other than the Swiss Criminal Code (SCC).
In view of the variety of situations covered by administrative
criminal law, the legislator deemed it necessary to unify this
field of law to some extent. Thus, the Federal Act on
Administrative Criminal Law (ACL), adopted by the Swiss parliament
on 22 March 1974, came into effect on 1 January 1975. In
particular,
