Interrogation Of Witnesses In The Different Jurisdictions

Interesting Aspects of the Revision of the Procedural Law in Switzerland for the foreign Litigants

1. INTRODUCTION

The Swiss tiny territory, which used to grant to its cantons the right to organize their courts and the procedural laws governing them, decided to fuse 26 different procedural laws, as many as Swiss cantons. Although the material law has been standardized for more than one century (civil law, law of contract) and that the Cantons are required to enforce it, the practical situations still arouse some questions to which the codes may give completely different answers. To make the matter worse, there is much custom that only the local lawyers are able to master. Hence, the leading of proceedings out of one's own canton turns out to be a sort of difficult, laborious and perilous undertaking.