Art. 56 OG; citizenship-rights disputes are public-law matters and fall outside the Federal Court’s appellate jurisdiction as civil disputes under federal law. The legal nature of the controversy is determined by its subject matter, not by the cantonal procedural designation or the fact that a civil judge has been made competent under cantonal law. Accordingly, a cantonal civil judgment on a citizenship claim does not render the case a civil dispute cognizable on appeal before the Federal Court (consid. 1).