Preliminary
With the term Vorhaft in is Austrian Criminal Procedure Law , the period of the arrest of a suspect and his detention in custody until a final sentence meant. It is therefore literally the time that someone has already spent in custody prior to commencing criminal detention ( Section 38 of the Criminal Code ).
Crediting the preliminary detention
Preliminary detention is of particular importance when calculating the time that a legally convicted person still has to spend in prison. The general rule here is that the presiding judge must make a decision in the verdict as to whether and to what extent pre-detention periods will be offset against the detention still to be served ( Section 400 (1) StPO ). As a rule, it is determined at what precise point in time the arrest of the suspect at that point in time took place and until when the subsequent pre-trial detention lasted. If the exact time of the arrest cannot be determined, this is to be set in favor of the accused at 00:00 on the day of arrest. In many cases, however, the final end of pre-trial detention is not yet certain when the first instance judgment is made, which is why pre-trial detention generally ends when the judgment becomes final and the execution of criminal detention begins. The presiding judge of the first instance decides on the crediting of this so-called intermediate detention, i.e. the period of detention between the first instance judgment and that of the appellate instance.
According to the Vorhaftzeit reduces necessarily to be served part of a prison sentence, which in custody often has particular with long duration and resultant long time the consequence that one to an unconditional imprisonment of convicted offenders sometimes have with the judgment becomes redundant by Vorhaftanrechnung from custody becomes.
If the preliminary detention has not been counted or incorrectly counted in the judgment, the accused or convicted person can request that this be corrected at any time. A correction of the crediting that is disadvantageous for the accused - e.g. a shortening of the crediting preliminary detention - may only take place as long as the judgment has not yet become final. If the accused or convicted person does not agree with the chairman's decision on the correction of the pre-detention credit, he can again appeal the complaint.
literature
- Christian Bertel, Andreas Venier: Criminal Procedure Law . 8th edition. Manz'sche publishing and university bookstore . Vienna, 2004. ISBN 3-214-14839-7
- Stefan Seiler: Criminal Procedure Law . Facultas Verlags- und Buchhandels AG. Vienna, 2010. ISBN 978-3-7089-0663-8
