Swiss court: teen pranks not grounds to deny naturalisation

As a 15‑year‑old, the applicant took part in egg‑throwing and a doorbell prank, earning just a juvenile court warning. Keystone-SDA

Teenage pranks like egg‑throwing are no reason to deny a Swiss passport, an Aargau court has ruled, as it upheld an Eritrean woman’s appeal against a naturalisation refusal.

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The young woman appealed after the Aargau naturalisation commission rejected her application, justifying its decision on the grounds that the applicant had been convicted during the naturalisation procedure.

At the age of 15, she had thrown eggs at the front of a house with other young people and had taken part in a prank known as the “doorbell prank”, which involved ringing all the doorbells in a building. The juvenile court sentenced her to a warning, according to the ruling published on Monday.

According to the administrative court, the Aargau committee’s opinion was not compatible with either Swiss law or the Constitution. A conviction for an offence does not automatically exclude naturalisation.

The court added that the committee must take into account the specific act, the circumstances and the culpability. It must then consider whether there is any reason to fear that the applicant will break the law again in the future.

Alleged arbitrariness

The court ruled that it would be arbitrary to reject the application solely on the basis of this conviction. The incident was unique, and occurred in the context of collective pranks committed by young people.

The incident had already occurred more than a year before the commission’s decision, the court added. It would therefore be arbitrary to deny the successful integration of the young Eritrean woman on this basis alone, it added.

The cantonal court therefore overturned the commission’s decision and granted the appellant cantonal and communal citizenship, subject to federal naturalisation. The ruling is not yet final.

Adapted from German by AI/sb

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