Zurich court rejects ‘perpetual hereditary citizenship’ for Austrian man

Zurich court does not recognise "perpetual hereditary citizenship" Keystone-SDA

The Zurich Administrative Court has denied an Austrian automatic Swiss citizenship. The man from a princely family invoked a hereditary right of citizenship dating back to the 15th century.

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The court referred the appellant to the normal naturalisation procedure, as can be seen from the ruling published on Tuesday. It thus upholds the decisions of the municipal authorities and the Zurich Directorate of Justice and Home Affairs.

The reason why he does not automatically become Swiss is due to a different law: his grandmother lost her citizenship in 1961 when she married an Austrian, despite having been granted “perpetual citizenship” in 1939. This was the law at the time. If she had wanted to remain Swiss, she would have had to make a declaration to that effect at the wedding.

Then came a bit of bad luck. Both the grandmother and the mother of the complainant were later naturalised. However, the grandmother was not yet Swiss when the mother was born. And the mother was naturalised one year after the complainant’s birth. He therefore narrowly missed out on automatic citizenship.

Destruction of a legal tradition

The man’s arguments about the “destruction of a historical legal tradition” and his interest in ensuring that “the historical citizenship of the princely family is not eliminated all at once” were not successful. The judges refrained from accepting the evidence requested, such as the edition of the dossier on the civil rights of the princely family from the Zurich city archives.

According to the judgement, everyone should be treated equally, as an “asserted vested right” is subject to this. The complainant is free to apply for proper naturalisation – like his parents and grandmother.

The man from a princely family has not yet admitted defeat. The highest judges are to decide; he has referred the appeal to the Federal Supreme Court.

Translated from German by DeepL/jdp

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