Violation of the Principle of Equivalence in the Determination of Court Costs

Facts

The appellant X. was convicted by the Criminal Court of the Canton of Basel-Stadt for commercial fraud and violation of traffic regulations. The court set the procedural costs at CHF 4,602.- and a judgment fee of CHF 5,500.-. An increase of the fee to CHF 11,000.- was envisaged in the event of a written judgment.

The Court of Appeal of the Canton of Basel-Stadt upheld the first-instance judgment. X. then filed a criminal appeal with the Federal Supreme Court, alleging that the judgment fee of CHF 11,000.- violated the principle of equivalence and excessively impeded the right to legal recourse.

Considerations

The Federal Supreme Court upheld the appeal. It found that the doubling of the judgment fee for the written justification of the first-instance judgment violated the principle of equivalence. The number of hearing days generally has no influence on the justification effort, so that only the additional effort for the additional hearing days may be taken into account.

Furthermore, the fee of CHF 11,000.- for the written reasoned decision also appeared unreasonable in the result, as the case did not present…