Decision on the Appeal against the Conviction for Attempted Fraud and Forgery of Documents

Facts

The Public Prosecutor (PP) of the Canton of Ticino accused [J.] of attempted fraud and forgery of documents, proposing a sentence of three months' imprisonment suspended on probation. [J.] opposed the indictment, but the Correctional Court of Lugano confirmed the same penalty proposed by the PP. [J.] then filed an appeal in German to the Court of Cassation and Criminal Review (CCRP) of the Cantonal Court of Appeal of the Canton of Ticino, which declared the appeal inadmissible due to the lack of translation into Italian within the set deadline. The CCRP also noted that the opposition to the indictment had been late.

Considerations

The Federal Tribunal ex officio examined the admissibility of the public law appeal filed by [J.] . According to case law, when a judgment issued by the cantonal instance is based on two independent grounds, the appellant must challenge both and demonstrate that each of them violates the Constitution. In the present case, the appeal does not meet these requirements of reasoning, as [J.] did not sufficiently clearly and precisely address the arguments of the CCRP, in particular on the lateness of the opposition to the indictment.

Furthermore, the Federal Tribunal noted that, according to the Federal Constitution, the freedom of language is limited by the principle of the official…