The Administrative Court stated that there must be an “indispensable” dependency for a right to stay for family reasons. This was not proven in the present case, it said.
Keystone-SDA
A 93-year-old Chinese woman must leave Switzerland even though she is receiving intensive care from her daughter here, Bern Administrative Court has decided. A legally relevant dependency on the daughter was not sufficiently proven.
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The daughter, who has a Swiss passport, lives with her family in the Bern region. She travelled to China in 2018 to care for her sick father. After his death, she took her mother to Switzerland at the end of 2021.
The widow, who had travelled to Switzerland on a visa, applied for a residence permit; the cantonal authorities refused and turned the woman away. The mother and daughter appealed against this up to the highest cantonal instance.
They argued that the elderly mother was suffering from dementia and other age-related complaints. She was completely emotionally and psychologically dependent on her daughter.
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In its judgement, the Administrative Court stated that there must be an “indispensable” dependency for a right to stay for family reasons. This was not proven in the present case, it said.
Diagnoses such as mild dementia do not automatically justify a right to stay, the court added. It was also possible to care for the woman in her home town of Nanjing. In addition, the necessary close ties to Switzerland were lacking for a pensioner’s permit.
The court also denied a case of hardship: it was an unsubstantiated claim that a return to China would lead to the woman’s premature death. The woman now has until June 17, 2026, to leave the country. The judgement can still be appealed to the Federal Court.
Adapted from German by AI/ts
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