Facts
On July 6, 2012, X. filed a criminal complaint against [A.] for simple bodily harm and threats. The plaintiff was summoned to appear at a conciliation hearing scheduled for February 19, 2013, by a summons. X. made it known that she did not intend to withdraw her criminal complaint and did not wish to be confronted with the defendant. The Public Prosecutor's Office maintained the hearing and X. did not attend the conciliation hearing.
By order of June 18, 2013, the Public Prosecutor's Office ordered the dismissal of the criminal proceedings against [A.], considering that X.'s complaint should be considered withdrawn due to her absence from the conciliation hearing.
X. filed a criminal appeal with the Federal Court, challenging the dismissal decision and requesting the annulment of the cantonal judgment.
Considerations
The Federal Court examined whether conciliation could be ordered for offenses punishable upon complaint even if the procedure includes other offenses prosecuted ex officio. The Court considered that the German and Italian texts of art. 316 para. 1 CrimPC differ from the French text in that the adverb "exclusively" is not included.
The Court analyzed the genesis of the norm and found that art. 346 of the preliminary draft of the Swiss Code of Criminal Procedure of June 2001 did not show any divergence between the three languages. The explanatory report on the preliminary draft specified that the public prosecutor "can naturally proceed with this attempt at conciliation even in cases where offenses punishable upon complaint are investigated at the same time as offenses prosecuted ex officio".
The Court concluded that the difference between the French texts on the one hand, and the German and Italian texts on the other, is due to a pure…