Facts
The Federal Supreme Court dealt with two appeals (1B_142/2023 and 1B_162/2023) by an accused against decisions of the Indictment Chamber of the Canton of St. Gallen, which had rejected his requests for relationship leaves during the early execution of his sentence.
The accused was in early execution of his sentence after having been sentenced by the District Court of Werdenberg-Sarganserland to a custodial sentence of seven years for commercial fraud, multiple misappropriation, qualified breach of trust, and other offenses. He had filed various complaints about detention and requests for relaxation of the execution of the sentence, all of which were unsuccessful.
The accused applied to the procedural management of the District Court for relationship leaves, which were, however, rejected. The Indictment Chamber of the Canton of St. Gallen confirmed these rejections in two decisions, against which the accused appealed to the Federal Supreme Court.
Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court held that different rules apply to persons in pre-trial detention or in early execution of sentence than to prisoners in ordinary execution of sentence. Thus, relationship leaves for persons in pre-trial detention or in early execution of sentence can be handled more restrictively than for prisoners.
The lower court had not exceeded its discretion in rejecting the leave requests. It had based its decision on serious and objective grounds, in particular the still considerable risk of…