TITLE IV
Judicial Assistance to Foreign Countries

CHAPTER TWO
Competences and Procedure

Competences for Processing Requests for Judicial Assistance
§ 55. (1) Notwithstanding paragraphs (2) and (3), the public prosecutor’s office with competences for the court district in which the act of judicial assistance is to be performed shall be responsible for processing a request for judicial assistance. If the request calls for a cross-border observation, the public prosecutor’s officer shall be responsible in whose court district the border is most likely to be crossed. In the case of an observation by an aircraft flying to Austria, however the public prosecutor’s office shall be responsible in whose court district the aircraft is to land. If the competences cannot be determined on the basis of the present provisions, the public prosecutor’s office in Vienna shall be responsible. The stipulations of Title 7 of the Code of Criminal Procedure shall apply in analogy to the processing of requests for judicial assistance.

(1a) Information about main proceedings, as well as about the execution of a custodial sentence or preventive measure shall be provided by the adjudicating court; the same shall apply to the examination of persons and for permitting the use of case files, whenever that a bill of indictment has already been filed with an Austrian court and the subject of the request for judicial assistance is connected to the Austrian proceedings. In this case, a single judge shall conduct the examination (§ 31 (1) item 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure).

(2) If a person to be transferred is being kept in punitive detention or is undergoing the execution of a measure, a single judge of the court indicated in § 16 of the Execution of Punishments Act shall decide about the request for transfer, or else the court that ordered the detention. The Federal Ministry of Justice shall be informed of the decision. The Federal Minister of Justice shall refuse the transfer if one of the circumstances listed in § 2 and § 3 (1) prevails. Transfer to the respective border crossing or any other agreed transfer site shall be performed by court prison guards.

(3) If a person detained in another State is to be transferred through the territory of the Republic of Austria to a third State for important investigative measures or the taking of evidence, especially for the purpose of examination or confrontation, § 44, § 47 and § 49 shall apply in analogy.