Criminal application (Austria)

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In Austrian criminal procedure law, the criminal complaint is a form in which the public prosecutor brings an indictment to court . In criminal proceedings before the district court or the single judge at the regional court , the public prosecutor has to bring the indictment in accordance with Section 210 (1) StPO exclusively in the form of a criminal complaint and not in the form of an indictment .

Legal Requirements

Just like the indictment, the criminal complaint must contain certain information ( Section 484 StPO). According to Section 211 (1) StPO, this includes in particular the name of the accused, the criminal offense accused of him and the relevant offense, whereby the offense charged must be individualized and thus clearly identifiable. In addition, the public prosecutor's office must submit evidence for the main hearing in the criminal complaint. In contrast to the indictment, the accused has no opportunity to appeal against the criminal complaint, but to compensate for this, the court provides for an ex officio examination of the criminal complaint by the court ( Section 485 of the Code of Criminal Procedure), which subsequently rejects the criminal complaint by means of a resolution or, in the case of a local or factual lack of competence, which can be explained with a resolution. With the filing of the criminal complaint, the “accused” becomes the “accused” in the criminal process.

In the case of private prosecution offenses, the private prosecutor must in any case file an indictment, even if the proceedings take place before the district court or the single judge at the regional court.

Formal structure

As a rule, criminal applications are prepared uniformly throughout Austria by the responsible public prosecutor's offices. The headline “criminal complaint” is usually followed by the personal details of the accused. Subsequently, the alleged behavior is individualized and subsumed under the facts recognized by the public prosecutor . Below that, the legal consequence is mentioned in the form of a ruling . Finally, the public prosecution has to make the further applications, whereby these usually include the conduct of a main hearing and the summoning of the accused and witnesses.

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