Facts
X. is an Albanian national and has been living in the political municipality of Oberriet since 1993. As a baby, he suffered a spinal cord nerve injury and has been confined to a wheelchair ever since. Between 1994 and 1998, he was employed in a workshop for the disabled, but has not been engaged in any gainful employment since then.
X. filed applications for naturalization in 2002 and 2004, which were rejected by the municipal assembly of Oberriet. The Department of the Interior of the Canton of St. Gallen overturned the rejections and remanded the matter to the municipality, so that the Naturalization Council could submit the application to the municipal assembly again. However, the municipal assembly also rejected X.'s naturalization in 2009.
X. filed a complaint against the rejection decision of the municipal assembly with the Federal Supreme Court.
Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court dismisses X.'s subsidiary constitutional complaint.
It finds that Article 14 of the Citizenship Act (BüG) grants persons seeking naturalization a sufficiently well-defined legal position, which enables them to invoke the prohibition of arbitrariness (Article 9 BV) and the principle of equality before the law (Article 8 (1) BV) in the procedure of the subsidiary constitutional complaint.
The Federal Supreme Court considers the reasoning of the rejection decision on naturalization to be formally sufficient, as reasons for the rejection were stated at the municipal assembly and a vote was then taken.
Regarding the allegation of a violation of the prohibition of discrimination (Article 8 (2) BV), the Federal Supreme Court concludes that the argument of the complainant's lack of local integration is not discriminatory. The…