Niklaus Oberholzer

Niklaus Oberholzer completed his studies in 1978 with a licentiate and in 1983 with a doctorate in both rights at the law faculty of the University of Basel. He obtained the patent as st. Gallic lawyer and notary.

He was initially employed as a clerk at st. Gallic courts and then moved to the University of St. Gallen as a research assistant for private and commercial law. In 1983 he took up the then newly created position of cantonal investigative judge for serious and banking crime at the St. Gallen public prosecutor's office. From 1990 he ran an independent law firm specializing in criminal defense in St. Gallen. In 2000 the Cantonal Council elected him as judge at the Cantonal Court of St. Gallen. He presided over the Prosecution Chamber (criminal complaints authority) and the Bar Association (supervisory authority for lawyers) and was a member of the Family Law Chamber. In 2012, the Federal Assembly was elected judge at the Swiss Federal Supreme Court in Lausanne. He took a seat there in the criminal justice department. In 2020 he returned to the law firm.

In addition to his full-time occupation, Niklaus Oberholzer was Deputy President of a Federal Appraisal Commission from 1987 to 2010. In 2011 he took a seat in the supervisory authority of the Federal Prosecutor's Office, which he presided over from 2015 to 2018. In its
military function, he worked from 1992 to 2005 as a judge at the Military Court of Cassation.

For almost 30 years (1985 to 2012) Niklaus Oberholzer taught criminal procedure law as part of his lawyer training at the University of St. Gallen. He regularly gives lectures and publishes on topics of criminal policy as well as on various questions of substantive criminal law and procedural law. His textbook on the basics of criminal procedural law has now been published in its 4th edition.

Niklaus Oberholzer is admitted to all courts in Switzerland; He is entered in the Zurich Bar Registry and is a member of the Zurich Bar Association. He works exclusively in an advisory capacity and takes on mandates in the area of coordination and support
complex criminal proceedings. In addition, he advises authorities and private individuals with regard to organizational and procedural issues for the police, intelligence services, public prosecutors and
Courts.