Facts
On 21 October 2016, the media reported that the Child and Adult Protection Authority of the City of Zurich (KESB) had commissioned the Pöschwies Penitentiary to bind archival material into books. This involved around 30,000 KESB decisions, some of which concerned the children of [A.] . [A.] subsequently filed a criminal complaint for breach of official secrecy.
The Public Prosecutor's Office opened a criminal investigation against five officials of the KESB and the Penitentiary. [A.] applied to be admitted as a private prosecutor in the proceedings, which the Public Prosecutor's Office and the High Court of the Canton of Zurich rejected.
Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court confirmed the rejection of the admission as a private prosecutor. According to the case law, for the status of an injured party within the meaning of Art. 115 para. 1 CrimPC and thus as a private prosecutor, it is required that the person concerned was directly violated in their rights by the breach of official secrecy. This requires that either the secret was disclosed to a third party or at least there was a concrete risk to the confidentiality interest of the person concerned.
In the present case, no concrete risk to the confidentiality interest of the appellant could be established. The KESB decisions concerning the appellant were merely part of a large number of files that were bound by a single prison inmate under…