Daily fail unsure whether woman is denied Swiss or Swedish nationality.

NotAllThere · #1 12.08.2019, 19:19

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ship-test.html

	Quote:
	By SOPHIE TANNO FOR MAILONLINE Iraqi woman fails Swiss citizenship test after answering ‘uh’ over 200 times despite living there for 20 years and claiming to speak German Iraqi woman denied Swedish citizenship after answering 'uh' numerous times She was denied passport despite having lived in the country for over 20 years. She is socially aware but lacks German language skills, according to local media Judge ruled she must improve her grasp of German before she can reapply An Iraqi woman has been denied Swedish citizenship after answering 'uh' over 200 times during her citizenship test. The woman was denied citizenship in the canton of Schwyz, where she lives with her husband. While her partner was granted citizenship after two attempts, her application for a Swiss passport has been denied. The woman, who is described as well-integrated, and has lived in Ingenbohl the canton of Schwyz for 20 years. She has also been known to engage in Samaritan charity work in her local community. She has the necessary social and political knowledge to obtain citizenship, according to local media. However, her German language skills appear to be lacking as tape recordings from her citizenship interview reveal the woman answered 'uh' a total of 204 times, Swedish publication Blick.ch reported. After being rejected by her local canton, the woman took her case to the Swiss Federal Court, claiming the recordings of the interview were taken without her consent. The federal judge said that the language diploma she holds from the Vocational Training Centre Pfäffikon SZ was not sufficient, and ruled that she must improve her grasp of the Swedish language before she can reapply for citizenship. Candidates for Swedish citizenship must demonstrate at least an A2 level writing ability (elementary) and B1 (intermediate) spoken skills under the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

st2lemans · #2 12.08.2019, 19:24

The DailyFail hits a new low!

Tom

#3 12.08.2019, 19:55

Uh ?

Tom1234 · #4 12.08.2019, 20:02

Nice photo of a Swedish passport too!

#5 12.08.2019, 20:07

No, all is okay.. a Brexit politician/journalist wrote that. Alles Klar.

miniMia · #6 12.08.2019, 20:28

	Quote:	Tom1234
	Nice photo of a Swedish passport too!

It seems they have corrected the text but the nice photo of the Swedish passport is still there. It is pretty good looking actually.

bowlie · #7 12.08.2019, 20:43

Well it could have been Swaziland ... They do talk German there, dont they? Just like Sweden!

olygirl · #8 12.08.2019, 21:01

Now if she had said "gäll" instead of "uh", she would have passed.

omtatsat · #9 12.08.2019, 21:29

	Quote:	NotAllThere
	https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ship-test.html

"uh-used in writing to represent the sound that people sometimes make when they are thinking what to say next."

Obviosly these Swiss nutheads did not give her the chance to answer. Typical Swiss burocrats!

NotAllThere · #10 12.08.2019, 21:35

	Quote:	miniMia
	It seems they have corrected the text but the nice photo of the Swedish passport is still there. It is pretty good looking actually.

I took screen shots.

nickatbasel · #11 12.08.2019, 22:06

In ZH they won't even consider you without a language diploma - sounds like a bit of a non-story.

omtatsat · #12 13.08.2019, 06:41

	Quote:	nickatbasel
	In ZH they won't even consider you without a language diploma - sounds like a bit of a non-story.

Yes of course its not true. I got my pass so easily. A guy came to my house. We had a 10 minute chit chat and that was all.

nickatbasel · #13 13.08.2019, 08:22

Perhaps citizenship interviews should be like an episode of Radio 4’s “Just A Minute”.

No hesitation, repetition or deviation.

Paul Merton would walk it.

Cheers,
Nick

bigblue2 · #14 13.08.2019, 09:51

	Quote:	nickatbasel
	Perhaps citizenship interviews should be like an episode of Radio 4’s “Just A Minute”. No hesitation, repetition or deviation. Paul Merton would walk it. Cheers, Nick

sounds more like mallets mallet

How does this work?

meloncollie · #15 13.08.2019, 10:03

A bit more to the story:

https://www.luzernerzeitung.ch/zentr...eit-ld.1141006

https://www.tagblatt.ch/newsticker/s...ung-ld.1141025

The federal court has ruled that the lady may challenge the rejection.

From the Luzernerzeitung article:

Dass die Beschwerde der Frau dennoch gutgeheissen wird, hat einen anderen Grund: Die Auffassung der Einbürgerungsbehörde, wonach die Deutschkenntnisse nicht ausreichten – trotz bestandener Sprachprüfung. Aus Sicht der Bundesrichter sind die Verantwortlichen gar nicht dazu imstande, das sprachliche Niveau korrekt und anhand des vorgegebenen Referenzrahmens zu beurteilen. Sie hätten sich beim Entscheid auf ihr Einschätzungsvermögen berufen, ohne über das nötige Fachwissen zu verfügen.

«Die Gemeinde hat demnach der Beschwerdeführerin die erforderlichen Sprachkenntnisse willkürlich abgesprochen.» Und mit Blick auf ihre Tätigkeit beim Samariterverein halten die Richter fest: Es sei nur schwer vorstellbar, wie die Beschwerdeführerin eine derart aktive Rolle übernehmen könne, wenn sie nicht über das für die Einbürgerung verlangte Deutschniveau verfügen würde.

Roughly translated:

The approval of the woman's complaint has another reason: the naturalisation authority's view that her knowledge of German was insufficient despite having passed the language test. From the point of view of the federal judges, those responsible are not in a position to assess the linguistic level correctly. In making their decision, they had relied on their ability to assess without having the necessary specialist knowledge.

"Therefore the Gemeinde arbitrarily denied the complainant had the necessary language skills. And with regard to her work for the Samaritans' Association, the judges stated that it was difficult to imagine how the complainant could assume such an active role if she did not have the German level required for naturalisation.

---

The second article also mentions that the school which gave the lady her language certificate was supported by the canton, and advertised the course as directed at those seeking citizenship.

olygirl · #16 13.08.2019, 10:33

Hmm.... I'll have to ask around to get to the nitty gritty of this story.

runningdeer · #17 13.08.2019, 10:54

	Quote:	bowlie
	Well it could have been Swaziland ... They do talk German there, dont they? Just like Sweden!

Sorry folks, no more comparisons to Swaziland. It is now known as Eswatini officially.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eswatini

aSwissInTheUS · #18 13.08.2019, 11:41

	Quote:	meloncollie
	A bit more to the story: https://www.luzernerzeitung.ch/zentr...eit-ld.1141006 https://www.tagblatt.ch/newsticker/s...ung-ld.1141025 The federal court has ruled that the lady may challenge the rejection.

That is the most important fail of the DailyFail:

	Quote:
	She is socially aware but lacks German language skills, according to local media Judge ruled she must improve her grasp of German before she can reapply [...] The federal judge said that the language diploma she holds from the Vocational Training Centre Pfäffikon SZ was not sufficient, and ruled that she must improve her grasp of the Swedish language before she can reapply for citizenship.

No. No. No. That is not what the Federal Court (there are several judges btw.) From Blick.ch https://www.blick.ch/news/schweiz/in...knStGZ2uTvbWes

	Quote:
	Aus Sicht des Bundesgerichts sind die Verantwortlichen gar nicht dazu imstande, das sprachliche Niveau korrekt und anhand des vorgegebenen Referenzrahmens zu beurteilen. From the standpoint of the Federal Court, those responsible [the communes naturalization committee] are not even in a capable to assess the linguistic level correctly, based on the given framework of reference.

There are now two options for the commune: Grant citizenship (as there is no other reason to deny than the bogus claim the German proficiency is not good enough) or proof by an actual expert that the language requirement is not met.

Actual law 1 - 0 Geranium police.

Cherub · #19 14.08.2019, 19:11

The Daily Fail appear to employ a crack team of dense 14 year olds these days. They work from home cutting and pasting articles together, then they upload them to the website, not a proofreader in sight!

This article did make me laugh though, because of an experience I had at my local council offices in Scotland about 3 years ago. As we only use our house there 4 times a year and we can't sell or let it due to ongoing issues with the development it's on, we decided to try to apply for a reduction in council tax. You don't get to speak to a knowledgable person face to face, you have to go to a desk at the Town House where someone listens to your query, then phones the relevant department to relay it to someone else (I know, bureaucracy at it's finest, reminds me of Terry Gilliam's Brazil

)

I was faced with explaining to a bored teenage girl (and an annoyed one as I'd obviously interrupted her enjoyment of OK! magazine) that we lived in Switzerland as my OH works there, were only back in Scotland for a few days a year etc, so could we have a rebate please. Teenager then rings relevant person in the council tax department and says "the woman here says her man works in Sweden", to which I said "no, it's Switzerland". During her phone conversation she kept saying Sweden and I kept saying Switzerland to the point it became farcical. By the time I left the building I was exasperated

For the record I got a 10% rebate which they then took away from me 6 months later

Oh, and I once mailed a parcel from Scotland to Austria and the Post Office sent it to Australia

bowlie · #20 14.08.2019, 20:43

Some of my British in-laws insist on addressing mail to us with the country name “Suisse”.

Despite our pleas for them to use “Switzerland” they persist. They just don’t understand that British post employees don’t make the connection. Their mail regularly goes via Sweden and once via Swindon. Lots of interesting notes written on the envelope.