Revoking Swiss citizenship requires compelling grounds. Support for terrorism can provide them. Switzerland’s Federal Administrative Court has now upheld denaturalisation in an unusual case, reported SRF.
The case concerns a 36-year-old man who was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina and became a naturalised Swiss citizen as a child. Five years ago a French court sentenced him to several years in prison for helping to prepare terrorist acts. He had run propaganda channels for Islamic State (IS) and recruited new members for the group.
Soon after the French judgment, Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) began proceedings of its own. In consultation with the authorities in Aargau, it ordered the man to be stripped of his Swiss citizenship. The SEM argued that he had committed a serious offence and caused substantial damage to Switzerland’s reputation
Typically, two conditions must be met before removal of Swiss citizenship. Removal must be sactioned by the canton of origin and the person must have another nationality to avoid statelessness—detailed rules on loss of Swiss citizenship.
The man challenged the decision. He argued that losing his citizenship would amount to serious interference in his private and family life. He also claimed that the measure violated the principle against double jeopardy, since he had already been punished in France. And he warned that he could become stateless because he was no longer a Bosnian citizen.
The Federal Administrative Court rejected those arguments. Denaturalisation, it held, is an administrative measure rather than a criminal punishment, so the prohibition on double jeopardy does not apply—double jeopardy means a person cannot be tried or punished twice for the same offence.
The court also found that the risk of statelessness was acceptable in this case. The man had voluntarily renounced his Bosnian citizenship even though he knew that proceedings were under way to remove his Swiss citizenship. His decision may therefore have been intended to frustrate those proceedings.
The judges acknowledged that revoking citizenship can interfere with private and family life. But given the man’s conduct, they concluded that Switzerland’s security interests carried greater weight. The measure was therefore deemed both permissible and proportionate.
The ruling reflects a strict approach despite the exceptional circumstances. It can still be appealed to the Federal Supreme Court.
Over the past decade the SEM has stripped seven dual nationals of Swiss citizenship for supporting terrorism.
If the ruling becomes final, it would be the first time revocation of Swiss citizenship has left a person stateless.
More on this:
SRF article (in German)
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