Eligibility for naturalization (one year permit L)

Visas, Permits, Passports and Naturalization
1
Hello all,

I have a question regarding eligibility for a Swiss passport.

In May 2022 will be 10 years since my wife has been living and working in Zurich. She would like to apply for a passport, but for the first year of her stay here she had an L permit (then she had a B and then C permit). Is there any chance that this will be acceptable for the migration office?

Thank you very much for the help in advance,

Dawid

2
Unfortunately, unless your wife has a very strong argument to start the process already in May, she will need to wait another year.

I had this problem as well, and my L permit was caused by incorrect application of law by authorities (AWA, the practice was later stopped by a court decision). Even though the authorities were at fault, the court (BVG) ultimately ruled that my L does not count and I have to wait. Justice in judiciary terms so to say

But one year is nothing in a naturalization process, those easily take many years, because every trivial step takes like 3-4 months.

3
I'm curious to know what was the application of the law that was found to be at fault.

In principle, cantons shouldn't be using the L permit as a step to the B permit when the foreigner has a permanent full-time job from day 1, as that is not what the L permit's purpose is, and the quotas for both come from different pools. But several cantons still do that, some even explicitly documenting the practice (for instance here in Valais it's clearly indicated that you cannot get a B permit unless you first have an L for 24 consecutive months). This creates a weird situation where cantonal procedures put you at a disadvantage with regards to federal citizenship requirements. So someone who immigrates to let's say Zurich essentially has two years more to wait to fulfill the federal requirements (12) than someone who immigrated on the same day in Basel (10). I'd be curious if there have been any court cases about this.

4
I think the court decision in question is this one (Verwaltungsgericht Kt. Zürich):

Geschäftsnummer: VB.2016.00141

Entscheidart und -datum: Endentscheid vom 13.07.2016

Spruchkörper: 4. Abteilung/4. Kammer

Weiterzug: Dieser Entscheid ist rechtskräftig.

Rechtsgebiet: Ausländerrecht

Betreff:

arbeitsmarktlichen Vorentscheid

[Kurzaufenthaltsbewilligung]

Die Praxis des Beschwerdegegners, Drittstaatsangehörige ungeachtet der konkret beabsichtigten Aufenthaltsdauer zunächst zu Lasten eines Kurzaufenthalterkontingents und allenfalls im Anschluss an die maximale Geltungsdauer der Kurzaufenthaltsbewilligung von zwei Jahren zu Lasten eines Aufenthalterkontingents zur Erwerbstätigkeit in der Schweiz zuzulassen, missachtet die vom Gesetzgeber für diese verschiedenen Bewilligungsarten vorgesehenen Zwecke und unterstützt verpönte versteckte Daueraufenthalte. Zwar mag es sein, dass auf diese Weise insgesamt mehr Drittstaatsangehörige zu einer (auf Dauer ausgerichteten) Erwerbstätigkeit im Kanton Zürich zugelassen werden können, als dies das dem Kanton zugewiesene Aufenthalterkontingent (allein) täte, und mag solches auch im wirtschaftlichen Interesse des Kantons liegen. Ein Partikularinteresse berechtigt die kantonalen Behörden indes nicht, vom Bundesgesetzgeber vorgegebene Zwecke zu missachten und die Kontingentierungspolitik zu unterlaufen (E. 4.2). Der Beschwerdegegner hätte den Beschwerdeführer vorliegend nicht zu Lasten eines Kurzaufenthalterkontingents zur Erwerbstätigkeit zulassen sollen. Ob Letzterer zu Lasten eines Aufenthalterkontingents hätte zugelassen werden sollen, kann das Verwaltungsgericht vorliegend nicht prüfen (E. 4.3 f.).

Teilweise Gutheissung im Sinn der Erwägungen und Sprungrückweisung.

5
Ah. So it's not a decision in favour of the permit holder ("the Court cannot examine whether the complainant should have been admitted against a quota of residents" i.e. whether they should have received a B permit) so much as a slap on the wrist of the canton for their use of L permits outside of their intended purposes.

6
Yes. However, in certain cases this is a useful precedent that helps to argue the case of counting years on L as if those were on B. E.g. in cases where AWA first granted L, and then, without any material change in the situation of the applicant a B was granted, an argument could be made that B should have been granted from the beginning. This practice of AWA in the Kanton of Zürich was clearly illegal and the court confirmed it.

7
Here in Valais the same practice is explicit in the published rules!

8
I looked at the rules for my canton, BS, and years spent on the L do not count - I guess it's a federal rule. Many people I know first had a L, followed by a B.

9
Long live Kantönligeist!

10
No it's not. Actually the federal handbook explicitly says that L permits that were clearly issued for a longer stay (e.g. there was an unlimited contract) are okay to count towards an early C permit.

However it's only in a sense that SEM would not object to cantons asking for approval of an early C permit where some of the 5 years were spent on L permits. The cantons can apply stricter rules and not count the L permits at all.

Unfortunately, the same SEM strongly objected to the same "long stay" L permits being counted towards citizenship and the final BVG decision is basically for people like awanderer and me to suck it up and wait 2 more years.

11
But BS also apparently doesn't give L permits for long-term stays. My colleagues got B permit as soon as their work contract became permanent. I actually had a discussion with the Basel AWA shortly after I moved from BS to VS, and knowing my family's situation (permanent contract in managing position) they were outraged that we got L permits. When I explained that it's actually the rules here they laughed on the phone at "those silly cantons that like to claim they're so by-the-book" and gave a hard time to Basel when there was an immigration scandal there a few years ago, but then "invent some rules that are against the law".