Refugee Case Law

Newly arrived asylum seekers in South Africa cannot immediately access the Department’s asylum application procedure.

Currently, disabled refugees in South Africa are excluded from accessing government-provided social assistance grants. The Strategic Litigation Unit represents a number of individual refugees who are disabled, and two refugee organisations that have refugee members who are disabled.

The Litigation Unit is currently representing a client who was atrociously tortured in his country of origin, Angola. After he applied for asylum in South Africa, the Department of Home Affairs took in excess of 2 years to determine our client’s status and reach the decision to reject his asylum claim. Thereafter, the Refugee Appeal Board also dismissed our client’s appeal against the rejection of his asylum application. The Appeal Board held the view that the conditions in Angola have improved to such an extent that they felt it was possible for our client to return there.

In this case, the Unit represents a Chinese national who has four children. The client initially came to South Africa after fleeing persecution on the basis of his political opinion. However, in the 12 years that he has been in South Africa, the client fathered 4 children with his wife.

At the end of 2004 the Strategic Litigation Unit successfully entrenched the principle that government departments could not without due process detain and deport unaccompanied foreign children from South Africa. Pursuant to an application brought by Lawyers for Human Rights, the Pretoria High Court handed down a judgment which held that the legal mechanisms for the protection of South African children, found in the Constitution and the Child Care Act of 1983, apply equally to unaccompanied foreign children present within South Africa’s borders.

This case is on its way to the Supreme Court of Appeal. In this matter, the Pretoria High Court upheld a defence of impossibility to a Mandament van Spolie claim. The local authority (Tshwane) and S A Police Services unlawfully evicted a large group of informal dwellers from a vacant piece of land and destroyed all their building materials in the process. Leave was granted to appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal and we are busy pursuing this appeal.

The applicants seek confirmation of a High Court order declaring certain provisions of the Immigration Act (the Act) unconstitutional. The government opposes the application and appeals against the judgment.