Facts
A. (born 1988), a Somali national, entered Switzerland in 2007 and filed an asylum application. His asylum application was rejected in 2010, but he was provisionally admitted due to the unreasonableness of the expulsion. In 2016, he received a residence permit for the canton of Aargau, which was converted into a permit for the canton of Zurich in 2017. This permit was regularly extended until 2020.
At the end of 2019, the Migration Office learned that A. had unsuccessfully filed an asylum application in France in 2017 and had visited his family in Somalia for one month in 2016, 2017, and 2018/2019. Consequently, the Migration Office determined in 2020 that A.'s residence permit had expired pursuant to Art. 61 para. 2 of the Foreign Nationals and Integration Act (FNIA), and decided not to extend the permit. A. unsuccessfully appealed against this decision.
A. filed a complaint with the Federal Supreme Court and requested the annulment of the lower court's judgment and the issuance of a residence permit or at least provisional admission.
Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court dismissed both the public law complaint and the subsidiary constitutional complaint.
The court stated that while the protection of private life under Art. 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) can generally establish a right to remain in Switzerland after a lawful stay of ten years, this protection is not applicable if the residence permit has expired under Art. 61 para. 2 FNIA due to an absence abroad of more than six months. In…