Facts
The appellant, a Turkish national, entered Switzerland in 1980 and was granted a settlement permit in 1990. He married a Turkish national who joined him in Switzerland in 1982 under family reunification. The couple has three daughters. In November 2012, the appellant left Switzerland and moved to Istanbul after withdrawing his pension fund assets. The appellant's wife applied for family reunification in 2017, which was rejected by the Migration Office of the Canton of Thurgau. The cantonal remedies remained unsuccessful.
The appellants appealed to the Federal Court and requested the annulment of the judgment of the lower court and the issuance of a residence permit for the appellant. They relied on Art. 43 para. 1 FNIA, Art. 47 para. 4 FNIA, and Art. 8 ECHR.
Considerations
The Federal Court examined the federal law ex officio and found that the appellants could not comply with the statutory deadline of five years for family reunification pursuant to Art. 47 para. 1 FNIA. The lower court had comprehensively and correctly reproduced the case law of the Federal Court and stated that the time of the appellant's voluntary departure was irrelevant for the question at issue here.
The Federal Court also examined whether important family reasons existed within the meaning of Art. 47 para. 4 FNIA that would justify subsequent family reunification. The lower court had found that the appellants had caused the family separation voluntarily and that the appellant had given up his settlement permit to become self-employed in Turkey.
The Federal Court concluded that the lower court had correctly applied the…