The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Switzerland violated the rights of a Kosovar man by unlawfully deporting him, awarding him €19,000 in damages.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has condemned Switzerland for unlawfully deporting a 35-year-old Kosovar man, citing a violation of his right to private and family life. The court awarded the man €19,000 in damages, including legal costs.
The man, who has a congenital heart defect, was deported to Kosovo in July 2023, despite having lived nearly his entire life in Switzerland. He arrived as a five-month-old infant in 1989 under family reunification, growing up in the canton of Ticino.
While he was convicted in 2009 for a violent assault and lost his residence permit, the deportation was not executed until 14 years later, after prolonged legal disputes. The man had argued that his life was at risk in Kosovo due to the lack of adequate medical facilities for his heart condition, which requires regular monitoring and potential emergency surgery.
Despite his criminal past—including a 2009 conviction for multiple counts of assault and coercion—the Strasbourg court emphasized that the man’s entire social and familial ties were rooted in Switzerland, and his deportation was therefore disproportionate.
Swiss authorities had justified the deportation by asserting that medical care in Kosovo was “sufficient” and pointing to the man’s occasional visits to his country of origin. However, the ECHR found that such visits did not equate to meaningful reintegration or the existence of a viable support network in Kosovo.
Importantly, the court chose not to rule on the adequacy of Kosovo’s healthcare system, stating that the violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights—the right to respect for private and family life—was in itself enough to render the deportation unlawful.
The man is now eligible to return to Switzerland, and the authorities are required to reassess his residency status in light of the court’s decision.
