Swiss Civil Code

¹ In di­vorce pro­ceed­ings or pro­ceed­ings to pro­tect the mar­it­al uni­on, the court shall as­sign one par­ent sole par­ent­al re­spons­ib­il­ity if this is ne­ces­sary to safe­guard the child's best in­terests.

² It may lim­it it­self to reg­u­lat­ing res­id­ence, con­tact or shar­ing of par­ent­ing du­ties if there is no pro­spect of the par­ents agree­ing on these mat­ters.

^2bis When reg­u­lat­ing res­id­ence, con­tact and the shar­ing of par­ent­ing du­ties it shall take ac­count of the right of the child to main­tain reg­u­lar per­son­al re­la­tion­ships with both par­ents.³⁷⁷

^2ter Where joint par­ent­al re­spons­ib­il­ity is awar­ded, with re­spect to the child’s best in­terests, it shall con­sider the pos­sib­il­ity of the child resid­ing with both par­ents on an al­tern­at­ing basis, if this is re­ques­ted by one of the par­ents or by the child.³⁷⁸

³ It shall re­quest the child pro­tec­tion au­thor­ity to ap­point a leg­al guard­i­an for the child if neither the moth­er nor the fath­er can be ex­pec­ted to ac­cept par­ent­al re­spons­ib­il­ity.