This goes beyond sham marriages and affects legit relationships as well. I have friends with partners in Thailand and Africa who cannot get a tourist visa to enter Switzerland due to the fear that they might marry and remain here.
It's not enough to have a financial security deposit on your guest anymore.

I think the Swiss fear a "browning" of their people.

Unfortunately too many fake mariages did end in a drama, defacto slavery and high cost for suporting divorced foreign ex partner by the taxpayers.

So this is the conclusion.

We should not forget that many countries have laws which restrict binational mariages, work permit and permanent residency, e.g. Thailand, Singapoore and many other countries too.

So wouldn't the new regulations help that case since one can't get married on a tourist visa anymore, it's more likely the authorities will issue them a bit more freely?

Dani, I see your point. Maybe the new rules will end that policy.

Just to be daft, why would a foreigner want to marry a Swiss anyway?

Hopefully it will hapen, but i doubt it because there is no logic reason behind it.
If our incompetent gouvernment realy wanted to prevent faked marriages, at least they should have made geniunie marriages possible.

It seems that people have to find loop holes again regarless if they are genuine lovers or pretending mariage to gain residency.

Whats next? prohibition of paternity?

To have a kid that looks more like me than you obviously.

Both of you are legally here. Neither of you are Swiss. Hence no problem.

i have to wonder what would have happened with my husband and i had we not had a courthouse wedding a month earlier in the u.s. before our wedding in switzerland. the only reason we did the courthouse wedding was because although it was a typical wedding ceremony, there was nothing legally binding about it.

my husband is swiss and i am an american.

Why was your courthouse ceremony not legally binding? And if it wasn't legally binding what was the point of doing it?

Grown up people can do whatever they like as long as:

a) they don't bother others (including myself)
b) expect others to bail them out in case they fail

Unfortunately marriage is a legal transaction with a high likelihood of either or both of the above materialising. So yes, let's go back a couple of hundred years and allow only the wealthy and noble to get married

Not quite so. Please refer to the following graph provided by wikipedia:

As a citizen of the U.S., you can travel for tourism only to areas in green. Notice that Brazil, for instance, requires you to get a visa, whereas the Swiss can enter without any.

Wow ,you mean I am not married , can`t wait to tell my (not) wife

My wife works with a guy from Pakistan. He paid about 60K to marry a Swiss woman. This was 4 months ago. He has to live in a two bed apartment and stay in one room AND pay for the apartment.
Also, he has been told to hide in his room when any friends of his so called wife are invited round. He is also not allowed to cook there.
If he does not agree then she has said she will divorce him.

Nice business, but I would not sacrifice 5-10 years of my life for this relatively small amount of dough.

Makes me feel quite lucky that I met the right woman - but I was never good at long term planning. Maybe in a decade he can marry his true love and they can live in CH.

Or maybe because this is obviously a sham marriage, they will get caught & he will have paid all that money for nothing.

Thay should revoke her citizenship ,give it to him ,deport her to Pakistan

Aren't people who do this kind of thing - whether here or in any other country - supposed to keep quiet about it!?

Probably, but my wife is a very trustworthy person - she trusts her husband too much. It is me who spills the beans and who has the big mouth.
Sorry, but It kind of made me laugh - we were talking tonight about this situation and my missus told me that this 23 year old so called wife has even had the audacity to make this guy clean the whole apartment.
Really happy I am not this desperate, but can understand where he is coming from.. Only 55 months left - hopefully.
Strange thing is that this husband still laughs about it. They are only young.

Was referring to the big mouth of the poor chap in question . On a serious note, I have heard some real horror stories about these types of marriages but at the end of the day it's an arrangement willingly entered into by both parties - one for the money (vendor), the other for papers (buyer). Not saying that the buyer deserves to be treated badly though just because they are operating from a disadvantaged position.

Both of them are wrong. Sadly the Swiss person is not the one that will be looked at in a bad light. It will be us foreigners, and as you can see it leads to more regulations for the rest of us.

Indeed that is so.