- No criminal offense: The public prosecutor’s office did not accept the proceedings for alleged violation of the right to information, as there was no criminal offense.
- Only false or deceptively incomplete information is punishable; mere delay or complete refusal does not fall under Art. 60 para. 1 lit. a FADP.
- In this specific case, although information was not provided within 30 days, this did not constitute a criminal offense and the charges were dismissed in accordance with Art. 310 para. 1 lit. a of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
In April 2025, the public prosecutor’s office of the Canton of Solothurn did not take up criminal proceedings due to an alleged violation of the right to information with a legally binding ruling. The background to this was a Request for information that was not answered within the standard period of 30 days.
According to the StA clearly not a criminal offense fulfilled. The reasoning corresponds to the clear doctrine and the materials (see also here):
The first offense is the provision of false information, i.e. the Communication of incorrect information that does not correspond to reality. Incomplete information that does not contain all the required information is then punishable. To put this into perspective, it should be noted that a Incomplete information is only punishable under the condition that at the same time the false impression is created that the information is complete. Incomplete (or limited or partially refused) information is therefore not objectionable under criminal law, provided this is disclosed accordingly. The complete refusal to provide information also does not fall under Art. 60 para. 1 lit. a FADP (Dispatch on the revision of the FADP 2017, 7101) and is therefore not punishable, especially as the offense of omission under Art. 60 para. 1 lit. b FADP does not apply to the duty to provide information (but only to the duty to provide information under Art. 19 para. 1 and para. 1 as well as Art. 21 para. 1 FADP). There is therefore no relevance under criminal law, for example, if the request for information from a data subject completely ignored or dispensed with the provision of information altogether even if information pursuant to Art. 25 FADP would actually be required from a purely data protection perspective. The fact that total non-disclosure as the grossest form of refusal is not covered by Art. 60 para. 1 lit. a FADP can be justified by the fact that in such cases it is most reasonable for the data subject to assert their rights in civil proceedings (see BSK DSG-Mathys/Thomann, Art. 60 N 20, 22, 25 and 27 f.).
In the present case, neither false information was provided nor incomplete information, which at the same time gives the false impression that the information is complete. The requested information was simply not delivered within 30 dayswhich constitutes at most a refusal to provide information (whereby it should be noted that the information is generally provided within 30 days in accordance with Art. 25 para. 7 FADP and that the provision of information was promised by […] in the e‑mail dated […] by […]). This means that clearly no criminal offense has been committed in the present case and the corresponding criminal charges for violation of the duty to provide information within the meaning of the Data Protection Act in application of Art. 310 para. 1 lit. a StPO.