Last month Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) stripped a dual national of his Swiss nationality. Now it has started the process of removing Swiss nationality from a woman who is also a citizen of France and Tunisia, according to Le Matin.

SEM recently announced in the Federal Gazette that it had started the process of stripping the 30 year old woman, who resurfaced in Syria, of Swiss nationality.

Article 42 of the Federal Act on Swiss Citizenship allows SEM to strip Swiss nationality from dual nationals if they seriously harm the interests and reputation of Switzerland and in doing so compromise the nation’s security.

An example is when an individual commits a serious crime connected to terrorism or extreme violence. According to SEM, this woman fulfills the requirements set out in the law.

The woman has one month to oppose the decision. SEM’s decision cannot be executed until the individual has had a chance to contest it at the Federal Tribunal, Switzerland’s highest court.

In June 2019, the Federal Council, Switzerland’s executive, said it had identified around ten dual nationals suspected of involvement in terrorist crimes abroad and that most of them were under formal criminal investigation.

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Tribune de Genève.

A German national who married a Swiss citizen lost his right to Swiss citizenship after Swiss authorities learned he had evaded tax in Germany.

Four years after marrying, the man applied to become Swiss. In March 2014, he was granted the right to be naturalised under the facilitated process, a process requiring fewer years of residence, which is offered to those married to Swiss citizens. Two months later, the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) went back on its decision after learning of the man’s problems with the German tax authorities.

The Bavarian courts, which have accused the man of evading tax of more than a million euros, demanded his arrest and extradition, something the Swiss authorities refused to grant.

The Federal Tribunal, Switzerland’s highest court, recently upheld the SEM decision.

According to the Federal Tribunal, SEM was right to go back on its decision, even if as a general rule a contravention does not take away the right to naturalisation. The sum involved is significant and tax evasion is a serious matter. Withdrawing the right to citizenship was not disproportionate, concluded the court.

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