Court Report for BGE 134 I 56 and BGE 134 I 49

Recently, in the Birr decision of 2008, the Federal Court had to consider a migrant’s naturalization application which had been rejected by the Municipal Citizens’ Assembly (Einwohner-Gemeindeversammlung) on the grounds that his wife’s headscarf represented a religious symbol of insufficient integration, and non-compliance with basic laws.[1] The Assembly argued: ‘The headscarf gives women a different gender and social role, which contradicts the principle of equality, guaranteed in general by universally applicable human rights, and in particular by the Swiss constitution. It is therefore contested that Mr. K. [...] respects, minds, and lives in accordance with equality between men and women’.[2] The Court ruled against the decision of the Assembly. It concluded that the ‘unequal treatment of the claimant as a result of a religious manifestation, and the compliance with religious practices by his wife cannot be justified on qualified or objective grounds whatsoever. Beliefs which are based upon religious motivation or advice to wear certain clothes are generally not to be examined or valued’.[3]