It was with this in mind that the opening words of the Freedom Charter and later the preamble of the Constitution proclaimed, ‘South Africa belongs to all who live in it’.
Unlike the US or our neighbour Lesotho, South Africa does not confer citizenship simply because you were born in its territory �` there must be a further tie to the country. Children born to South African citizens (whether one or both parents) are automatically citizens, and children born and registered to foreign parents who were admitted for permanent residence qualify for citizenship when they turn 18 if they have lived in South Africa their whole life.
But what about the many children born in South Africa to parents who were neither South African citizens nor foreigners admitted for permanent residence?
While the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2010 has been criticised for restricting citizenship rights, including the “midnight deprivation” of the right to citizenship acquired under previous legislation, it took one positive step towards inclusion by broadening the category of persons eligible to apply for citizenship.
The Citizenship Amendment Act, which came into force on 1 January 2013, provided a new pathway to citizenship: children born and registered in South Africa to parents who were neither South African citizens nor permanent residents at the time of birth and who live their whole life in South Africa until they turn 18 have the right to apply for “citizenship by naturalisation”.
This progressive provision recognises the attachment and lived experience that young adults born and raised in South Africa have in their country of their birth. The provision promotes the spirit of those opening words of the Freedom Charter.
However, while the right to apply for citizenship in terms of this provision exists, there is no formal way to apply. This is because the minister of home affairs (including the six ministers who occupied that position since the Citizenship Amendment Act came into force) has not made the necessary regulations or application forms.
In 2017, five frustrated young adults who were eligible but unable to apply for citizenship approached the Western Cape High Court with the assistance of the Legal Resources Centre. The minister’s response? The provision only applies to children born after 1 January 2013, not before.
They should apply for asylum, or permanent residence, not citizenship. The court disagreed.
The court determined that the provision also applies to children born before 1 January 2013, and that by preventing them from obtaining or even applying for citizenship, the minister infringed on their dignity and personhood and effectively granted them “a status of ‘second-class’ citizens”.
The minister appealed the matter, but the Supreme Court of Appeal was equally scathing in its review of his interpretation of the provision. It found that sending the group of young adults from “pillar to post” infringed on their constitutional rights, and concluded that the “state of affairs cannot be countenanced.” It upheld the High Court’s finding that the provision also applies to children born before 1 January 2013, and ordered the minister to make the necessary regulations and application forms, and to accept applications on affidavit in the meantime.
This was in 2018. The minister appeared to do nothing. No

regulations were processed, no forms published. The young adults who brought the matter to court still weren’t assisted by the department.
About nine months later, in 2019, well beyond the normal prescribed periods for appealing a judgment, the current minister (Aaron Motsoaledi) sought to appeal the matter again, effectively sending the group of young adults from pillar to post, to the doors of the Constitutional Court. Earlier this month, the Constitutional Court refused the minister’s application to appeal. The minister’s appeal was refused as he had failed to provide adequate reasons for the delay in appealing.
It is now a decade since the Citizenship Amendment Act was passed into law, and seven years since it came into effect. Despite this, there is no indication from the Department of Home Affairs or the minister that we should expect the regulations to be made soon. The minister has been under order of the Supreme Court of Appeal to make the necessary regulations by November 2018.
This delay does not come as a surprise given the department’s history of delayed implementation of court orders. One need only look to the unreasonable delay in implementing the court orders to reopen the Port Elizabeth Refugee Reception Office (which was only done three years after the deadline given in the court order), the ongoing non-implementation of a September 2017 Supreme Court of Appeal order to reopen a fully functional Refugee Reception Office in Cape Town by 31 March 2018, or most recently, a November 2019 Supreme Court of Appeal judgment ordering the department to assist foreign nationals to conclude civil marriages in South Africa, which according to this news article is still not happening.
The minister’s failure to make the regulations and give effect to the Citizenship Amendment Act �` in spite of the act having been passed by Parliament, signed into law by the president, and being ordered to do so by the Supreme Court of Appeal �` poses serious challenges to the Constitution, the rule of law, and the democratic values that South Africa is so proud of. This should concern every South African, and not only those would-be citizens most impacted in this case.
The Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town, a not-for-profit organisation, is one of many organisations that have been approached by several young adults who hold this right to apply for citizenship but are unable to exercise it.
Many of these young adults are children of Angolan former refugees, children of refugees from Rwanda, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo whose parents claimed asylum in South Africa in the late 1990s or early 2000s, or other long-time migrants in the country.
In stark contrast to the words of the Freedom Charter and the Constitution, these young adults are living in a state of exclusion. They hold the right to apply for citizenship, but cannot exercise this right. They are asked to have a passport and visa to continue living in the only country they have ever known.
While the minister did not create this problem, he is well-poised to fix it. Motsoaledi should act where his predecessors did not. V.3437

There are fears that more people will be separated by the introduction of a minimum salary level for those wanting UK family visas. Families living in the UK and abroad have raised concerns about what new rules will mean for them as they try to reunite with foreign spouses. In December, the Home Office, which says migration to the UK is too high, announced a package of measures to reduce net migration, following a spike in arrival numbers. V.5318
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An Ethiopian asylum seeker, who does not speak English, claims he was duped by a senior immigration official into paying an admission of guilt fine when he thought he was paying for bail.Two Western Cape High Court judges have condemned the official`s `deplorable` behaviour, set aside the fine, and ordered the immigration official be taken off the case. Tsegaye Esyas claims Annelise van Dyk treated him like an animal which led to him attempt suicide while in police cells. V.5320
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EREMY MAGGS: I want to stay with crime now. Individuals with a criminal record may be faced with significant challenges when seeking employment, I think that’s a given. Here in South Africa, employers may legally exclude an applicant from consideration for a position if having a clean criminal record is what is termed an inherent requirement of the job. That phrase, inherent requirement, is important, but what exactly does that mean, and when can an applicant be lawfully excluded for having a criminal record? V.5321
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As a South African who has adopted a nomadic work lifestyle alongside my wife, Ingrid Lotze, I’ve been an interested observer of South Africa’s snail-pace digital nomad visa (DNV) development process. Despite the optimism surrounding its introduction, the visa seems to miss several crucial marks for digital nomads like us. V.5322
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DA MP says hours lost continue to result in persons being unable to collect their ID documents due to unmanageable queues The DA has been inundated with complaints that the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) systems are offline, resulting in long queues and delayed processing of documents. Through questions posed to the Minister, the DA can now reveal that the DHA has lost over 77 years’ worth of working hours due to system downtime and load-shedding from 2019 to date. Concerningly, this data only relates to hours lost for the application of smart IDs, meaning decades more of working hours could have been additionally lost in other spheres such as passport or visa applications. V.5314
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Home Affairs’ seemingly endless court battles set the department back more than R110-million between April 2023 and the end of February this year. This was revealed in a written parliamentary response by minister Aaron Motsoaledi. He said the department accumulated a litigation bill of R117 692 996.3, higher than the R72 637 944.51 spent the year before. V.5315
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Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) this week revealed that Cape Town International Airport (CTIA) has achieved a ground-breaking milestone by processing more than 10 million passengers over a single financial year. This is the highest number of regional and international passengers processed since COVID-19 V.5316
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In recent years, South Africa has seen a significant influx of immigrants from various African countries, as well as other parts of the world. This has raised important questions about the country`s immigration policies and their impact on job creation for both locals and immigrants. The South African immigration system, like many other countries, is a complex and ever-evolving process that aims to balance the country`s economic needs with its social and cultural interests. Let`s take a closer look at how this system intersects with job creation in South Africa. The South African government implemented the Immigration Act of 2002, which outlines the country`s immigration policies and procedures. Under this act, foreigners are required to obtain a visa or permit to enter, work, or study in South Africa. The type of visa or permit required depends on the intended purpose of the individual`s visit and their country of origin. V.5312
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Due to system downtime and load-shedding, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) lost nearly 141,000 hours of Smart ID application and production time between the 2019/20 and 2022/23 financial years. Minister Aaron Motsoaledi revealed this figure in a recent response to questions raised in Parliament by Democratic Alliance MP Adrian Roos. Motsoaledi provided a breakdown of smart ID production and application hours lost to technical difficulties and load-shedding per province for each financial year from 2019/2020. These disruptions hit home Affairs offices in the Eastern Cape the hardest, with over 34,000 hours to rotational power cuts and system downtime. Mpumalanga offices lost the next-highest number of hours at 17 V.5313
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Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has said the public has shown great support for the final White Paper on citizenship, immigration and refugee protection which appeared in the Government Gazette on Wednesday. Briefing the media, he addressed what he saw as a long-overdue need to replace an outdated Citizenship Act, as well as enact proposed changes to existing legislation. V.5306
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