Court rejects woman’s appeal for individual social assistance

Switzerland’s Federal Supreme Court has rejected a woman’s appeal for an individual social assistance assessment after her husband refused to disclose his financial records, SRF reported.

The woman needed support, but her husband did not want to claim social assistance because he feared it could jeopardise his residence permit. He was therefore unwilling to provide documents showing his income. The authorities in the canton of Jura refused to assess the woman’s needs separately, as married couples are treated as an economic unit.

People seeking social assistance must disclose their finances and show that they need help. Spouses are obliged to support one another financially, so a couple is not eligible if one partner can provide for the other. When assistance is needed, authorities calculate a shared budget, which is lower than the combined total of two separate budgets.

A judge noted that spouses can have individual interests and that the woman had no money and was not responsible for her husband’s refusal. But the court majority said authorities could not be expected to establish a couple’s finances without the applicants’ cooperation. The woman should have obtained the figures by other means, the court said.

Married couples are also treated as a unit for taxes, health insurance premium subsidies and supplementary benefits. The approach can bring advantages too, including in inheritance, inheritance and gift taxes, and pensions. Some cantons and municipalities also treat unmarried couples who live together as an economic unit for social assistance or health insurance premium subsidies, although the article notes that this is not entirely clear under the law: unmarried partners have no legal duty to support one another and do not receive the same privileges as married couples.