An Italian man spent 30 years living in Switzerland, starting his own successful ice cream business and raising two sons.

But when he tried to become a Swiss citizen in 2015, he was rejected. The reason? He didn’t know that bears and wolves shared an enclosure at the zoo.

That decision — which authorities said pointed to the man’s failure to integrate socially — was overturned on Monday, when the Swiss Federal Tribunal, the country’s supreme court, deemed it to be unreasonable and arbitrary. According to newspapers Le Matin and 20 Minutes, a panel of judges ordered that the man be granted citizenship immediately,

A news release from the Federal Tribunal this week did not name the man, described only as an Italian national in his 50s.

Several high-profile cases have brought international attention to the peculiarities of Swiss immigration law in recent years — from a Muslim couple who were denied citizenship for refusing a handshake to an animal rights activist deemed too annoying for naturalization. While the federal government decides who gets to become a citizen in most countries, applications for naturalization in Switzerland are handled at the local level. Some rural communities even still hold public meetings in which the town’s inhabitants vote on each applicant with a show of hands.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/01/29/switzerland-citizenship-bears-wolves/