Our offices in Walenstadt in the canton of St. Gallen are about 270 meters away from Lake Walensee and can be reached on foot from Walenstadt train station within about 15 minutes. They are located above the lake road.
The city of Zurich can be reached from Walenstadt every half hour by regular direct trains. There are also connections every half hour to Chur (with a travel time of approx. 35 minutes) and St. Gallen (reachable in around one hour and ten minutes or one and a half hours, depending on the train).
Our contact details in Walenstadt are:
Swiss Law Solutions KLG, The Ghaemmaghami Law Firm
Staadweg 3
P.O. Box 57
8880 Walenstadt
Phone +41 (0) 81 710 21 21
Mobile: +41 (0) 78 694 82 17
For a more detailed overview of Swiss legal system, see the page about our location in Zug.
In the Canton of St. Gallen, the jurisdiction and organization of civil and criminal justice is governed by the Court Act (GerG, https://www.gesetzessammlung.sg.ch/app/de/texts_of_law/941.1), the Introductory Act to the Swiss Code of Civil Procedure (EG-ZPO, https://www.gesetzessammlung.sg.ch/app/de/texts_of_law/961.2) and the Introductory Act to the Swiss Criminal and Juvenile Criminal Procedure Code (EG-StPO, https://www.gesetzessammlung.sg.ch/app/de/texts_of_law/962.1).
According to Art. 197 et seq. of the Code of Civil Procedure, the cantons must provide for conciliation authorities in civil law disputes, i.e. authorities which strive to resolve conflicts between parties through mediation and negotiation before legal proceedings take place. For most legal disputes, this conciliation process must be completed before recourse to the court is permitted.
In the canton of St. Gallen, the conciliation authorities are not organized at municipal level, but at cantonal level. In the canton of St. Gallen, the so-called mediators are responsible for the conciliation procedure. These are elected by the seven district courts of the canton and are subject to their supervision. The entire canton is thus divided into 19 mediation districts or 19 mediation offices. A list of the various mediation offices can be found here: https://www.sg.ch/recht/gerichte/organisation---standorte/schlichtungsstellen-und-vermittlungsaemter/vermittlungsaemter.html
There are special conciliation authorities in the area of rental and lease matters (https://www.sg.ch/recht/gerichte/organisation---standorte/schlichtungsstellen-und-vermittlungsaemter/schlichtungsstellen-fuer-miet--und-pachtverhaeltnisse.html), in the area of employment law disputes (see https://www.sg.ch/recht/gerichte/organisation---standorte/schlichtungsstellen-und-vermittlungsaemter/schlichtungsstellen-fuer-arbeitsverhaeltnisse.html), in the area of lawsuits under the Equality Act (https://www.sg.ch/recht/gerichte/organisation---standorte/schlichtungsstellen-und-vermittlungsaemter/schlichtungsstelle-fuer-klagen-nach-dem-gleichstellungsgesetz.html) and also in the area of public-law personnel matters (https://www.sg.ch/content/sgch/recht/gerichte/organisation---standorte/schlichtungsstellen-und-vermittlungsaemter/schlichtungsstellen-in-oeffentlich-rechtlichen-personalsachen.html).
The highest court of the canton in civil and criminal proceedings is the Cantonal Court of the Canton of St. Gallen. As a court of appeal, it hears appeals and complaints against decisions made by the district courts. In certain matters, the Cantonal Court of St. Gallen also acts as the sole instance (e.g. with regard to lawsuits against the federal government). More information about the Cantonal Court of St. Gallen can be found here: https://www.sg.ch/recht/gerichte/organisation---standorte/kantonsgericht.html
For the adjudication of commercial disputes in accordance with Art. 6 ZPO, there is a commercial court in the canton of St. Gallen (one of four commercial courts in Switzerland, alongside the commercial courts in Zurich, Bern, and Aargau). See https://www.sg.ch/recht/gerichte/organisation---standorte/kantonsgericht/aufgaben/handelsgericht.html. The Commercial Court of St. Gallen also has jurisdiction over certain matters for which federal law pursuant to Art. 5 ZPO provides for adjudication by a single cantonal court, e.g., disputes concerning business names, trading companies, and cooperatives, antitrust disputes, disputes in the field of intellectual property law (trademarks, designs, copyright, etc.), with the exception of patent disputes.
The purpose of the Commercial Court is to ensure that individual commercial disputes are adjudicated with industry-specific expertise as far as possible. To this end, the court also employs part-time expert judges, i.e. judges who have special expertise and experience in the relevant field of law or economic sector.
The court of last instance is the Federal Supreme Court. For more information on the Federal Supreme Court, see https://www.bger.ch/home.html. However, the Federal Supreme Court cannot be appealed to in all cases. For example, in financial matters, the value of the claim must in principle exceed CHF 30,000 (Art. 74 para. 1 lit. b BGG).
The public prosecutor's office, which acts as the investigating and prosecuting authority, consists of four regional investigation offices, the cantonal investigation office responsible for the entire canton, the Juvenile Prosecutor's Office, and the staff services. For information on the organization of the public prosecutor's office, see: https://www.sg.ch/content/sgch/politik-verwaltung/departemente-und-staatskanzlei/sicherheits--und-justizdepartement/staatsanwaltschaft.html.
The public prosecutor's office is headed by the chief public prosecutor, who also chairs the public prosecutors' conference. In addition to the chief public prosecutor, this conference consists of the senior public prosecutors of the canton and the senior juvenile prosecutor. The purpose of the conference is, among other things, to ensure the uniform application of the law and the proper performance of tasks.
Professional supervision of the cantonal public prosecutor's office is exercised by the Indictment Chamber (see https://www.sg.ch/recht/gerichte/organisation---standorte/kantonsgericht/aufgaben/anklagekammer.html).
The district courts are the courts of first instance responsible for adjudicating criminal offenses. Interestingly, however, around 98 percent of criminal proceedings do not even reach a court of first instance, but are settled by final decisions of the public prosecutor's office (e.g., by penalty orders, dismissals, transfers, non-prosecution, etc.). See: https://www.sg.ch/politik-verwaltung/departemente-und-staatskanzlei/sicherheits--und-justizdepartement/staatsanwaltschaft.html
So-called penalty orders play an important role here. A penalty order is a kind of proposed judgment in cases where the facts of the case have been sufficiently clarified (e.g., through a confession or clear evidence). If the penalty order is not contested, it becomes a final judgment. Across Switzerland even, well over 90 percent of all criminal cases that are not dismissed are settled by means of a penalty order (i.e., because they are not contested). However, what the public prosecutor's office considers to be “sufficiently clarified” facts are too often not. Media research in the cantons of Zurich and Zug has shown that in 13 percent of cases where objections are lodged against a penalty order, the criminal proceedings are discontinued (these are the statistics for the canton of Zurich). In the canton of Zug, as many as 20 percent of cases are dismissed. In cases where the public prosecutor's office upheld the summary penalty order and referred it to the court for assessment, slightly more than one in ten proceedings ended in a full acquittal in the past years (see https://www.blick.ch/politik/bis-zu-20-prozent-der-verfahren-werden-eingestellt-wer-sich-gegen-strafbefehle-wehrt-hat-oft-erfolg-id18652662.html).
The court of appeal is the Cantonal Court of St. Gallen. The complaint authority is the Indictment Chamber.
The highest and final court of appeal is again the Federal Supreme Court.
The organization and procedure of administrative justice in the Canton of St. Gallen is governed by the Administrative Justice Act (VRP) of May 16, 1965. See https://www.gesetzessammlung.sg.ch/app/de/texts_of_law/951.1.
In the area of administrative justice, administrative matters are initially dealt with by the authorities at municipal or cantonal level.
The outcome of this first-instance administrative procedure is a decision which, based on public law, establishes, revokes, modifies, or determines a specific legal relationship between the community and a private individual.
The decision can then be challenged by means of an appeal. Depending on the legal issue and area of law, a wide variety of legal instances may be responsible for assessing the appeal—on the one hand, internal instances (e.g., the municipal council, at the municipal level, the relevant department of the cantonal administration, etc.), and on the other hand, external administrative instances, i.e., judicial authorities. In the canton of St. Gallen, these are the Administrative Appeals Commission and the Insurance Court.
The respective appeal decision can then generally be challenged by filing a complaint with the Administrative Court of the Canton of St. Gallen. The complaint may only challenge violations of rights and incorrect or incomplete findings of fact. It is not possible to review the discretion exercised by the lower instance. In principle, no new claims or new facts may be asserted.
Appendix 1 to the government's announcement on the eighth amendment to the VRP provides a good overview of the administrative court system in the canton of St. Gallen:
The final instance in administrative court proceedings is generally the Federal Supreme Court.
