Compulsory schooling violated? Parents fly to the Caribbean with their daughters - back home they find themselves in court
The parents of two daughters were accused of deceiving the authorities when they returned from their vacation two weeks earlier than planned. Now they have also been acquitted in the third instance.
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- The Zurich High Court has confirmed the acquittal of two parents who had been reported by the school authorities.
- The dispute centered on the ten-week absence of the couple's school-age daughters due to a trip.
- After a request for a dispensation was rejected, they extended a planned stay in the Caribbean to the minimum length required to be able to withdraw the children from school, but returned earlier than planned.
- The school administration felt deceived and filed a complaint.
- The Zurich High Court confirmed the acquittal in the third instance.
In Zurich, a legal dispute over a controversial vacation for two schoolgirls with their parents has ended in an acquittal. The family wanted to visit their uncle, who lived in the Caribbean, for 14 weeks in 2023, but returned after twelve weeks. The school authorities then reported them.
On paper, the parents had done everything right: schoolchildren must be deregistered from school if they are absent for more than twelve weeks - school vacations do not count. And that's exactly what they had done. What had happened?
The origin of the legal dispute, which the Tages-Anzeiger is now reporting on, lies in the history of the trip. Originally, the family had only wanted to spend five weeks in the Caribbean. The parents applied for a dispensation, which was rejected in the case of the 12-year-old daughter because she had already been dispensed once before.
Trip ended prematurely
To get around this problem, the trip was rescheduled - and extended by another nine weeks. With the new length, the trip had reached the required duration for the school-age daughters to be deregistered.
When the children were registered for school again two weeks earlier than planned, the school authorities became skeptical. Had the family deliberately deceived the school authorities and not intended to spend more than twelve school weeks in the Caribbean? Was it a case of deception to avoid the rejection of the application for a dispensation? This was followed by a complaint to the Winterthur district administration office.
The office agreed with the school administration: the children had been absent without excuse, for which each parent would be fined 2,000 francs. A fee of 950 francs was added. However, the parents appealed to the next instance: the Winterthur district court acquitted them. That was in July 2024.
Acquittal confirmed
There were two specific reasons for the premature return journey: Firstly, the mother of the family suffered a circulatory collapse during her stay abroad. Secondly, the 10-year-old daughter suffered from increasingly severe homesickness.
The governor's office also appealed to the next instance. However, the Zurich High Court sided with the parents and confirmed the existing acquittal. A deliberate circumvention of the denied dispensation could not be proven. The demand for evidence of the mother's state of health and the daughter's homesickness was rejected as inadmissible.
In response to an inquiry by the "Tagesanzeiger" newspaper, the district administrator's office intends to accept the ruling. It is not yet legally binding.
