Home Affairs defying court order, says LRC Five years of court battles to get Home Affairs to honour constitutional rights of refugees

Source: Groundup, 14/03/2018

Home Affairs has defied a Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruling that
required its director-general to make frequent reports on the steps
being taken to reopen a fully functional Refugee Reception Office in
Cape Town, says the Legal Resource Centre (LRC).
On 30 January Home Affairs told GroundUp that a new refugee office
for Cape Town is on its way. Spokesperson David Hlabane said the
department had written to Public Works to get a suitable building for
the refugees’ office “to give effect to the court order and to ensure
that all the needs of refugees and asylum seekers are properly met”.
The Cape Town Refugee Office (CTRRO) in Maitland was shut down by
Home Affairs in 2012, despite being the second busiest refugee office
in the country. Home Affairs then closed it Foreshore office to all
new applicants and to all those renewing permits who had originally
applied for these at offices other than Cape Town.
With the support of the LRC, asylum seekers took Home Affairs to
court. The case went on for five years, but in September 2017 the SCA
ruled that Home Affairs must “reopen and maintain a fully functional
refugee reception office in or around the Cape Town Metropolitan
Municipality, by Friday 31 March 2018.” The case concluded when the
Constitutional Court refused to hear an appeal by Home Affairs. This
means the SCA ruling is final.
The LRC wrote to Home Affairs on 11 January requesting to see a
report regarding the implementation process as stipulated by the
court.
Home Affairs did acknowledge receipt of the request and responded to
the LRC: “We shall be in a position to furnish your office with an
elaborative and extensive report as ordered by the court, at the end
of February 2018.”
To date the department has failed to send any report on the progress
towards reopening.
A judge in another case ordered Home Affairs to renew or extend
asylum seeker permits at its Cape Town centre, irrespective of where
the applicants first applied for asylum in the city. This is
according to Sherylle Dass, Cape Town Regional Director for the LRC.
This does not only apply to people mentioned in the case but to all
asylum seekers living in the Western Cape. Home Affairs initially
appealed this decision but then withdrew that appeal.
“The department had been penalising refugees by issuing them with
administrative fines for not renewing their asylum seeker permits, as
if they are the ones who had failed to comply with the Refugees Act.
Yet it is [Home Affairs] who was refusing to renew permits of asylum
seekers who applied for asylum from other Refugee Centres outside of
Cape Town,” said Dass.
Refugees, such as Mbaya Mukendi from the DRC, say they are anxiously
waiting for Home Affairs to open the office as ordered by the court.
“Since 2015, when they stopped renewing my document, I have lost many
opportunities. My bank account closed; I am out of work; I am living
on piece jobs. I am a qualified and experienced tailor but because of
the state of my document nobody wants to hire or partner in business
with me,” said Mukendi.
He first applied for asylum in Pretoria in 2008. He renewed his
documents at the foreshore offices until 2011, after which he was
told he has to renew in Pretoria. He travelled to Pretoria, where he
was also turned away. An official wrote on his document: “Go back and
renew in Cape Town.” In 2016, he was arrested in Pretoria and had to
pay a R1,000 ‘admission of guilt’ fine for not renewing his document
on time.
GroundUp also spoke to a 28-year-old woman, a refugee from DRC. She
has three children in Cape Town. The children’s school is demanding
valid papers.
She originally applied for asylum in Musina in 2012. She was told by
officials she would be able to renew her documents in Cape Town. The
last time she was allowed to renew at the Foreshore offices was in
2014. She was told to go back to Musina, but she doesn’t have the
money to travel there.
In December, she narrowly escaped arrest when immigration officers
raided the block of flats where she lives in Parow. “Since that time
I am living in fear. It’s not nice to stay with invalid document. I
can’t study. I can’t work. Because I am illegal, I need to be careful
of my movements,” she said.