Home Affairs reopens its Cape Town refugee office it will have taken ten years

Source: Groundup, 09/12/2021

Epping office expected to open in September 2022
Asylum seekers protest back in 2012 outside the original Cape Town
Home Affairs’ refugee reception office in Maitland. Archive photo:
Veronica Washaya
• In its latest report to the High Court, Home Affairs says it
now expects to reopen a refugee reception office in Cape Town in
September 2022.
• In a decision that the court found irrational and
unreasonable, Home Affairs closed its office in 2012.
• It has taken a protracted legal battle to get Home Affairs
this far.
• Currently refugees can only apply for asylum in Durban, Musina
or Pretoria.
The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) says it will be almost another
year before Cape Town gets a Refugee Reception Office once again.
As required by an order made in May by the Western Cape High Court,
Home Affairs was reporting to the court on its progress for reopening
a fully functional Cape Town Refugee Reception Office. It said it
plans to open the new office at 16 Grenville Avenue, Epping
Industrial, in September 2022.
By then it will have been ten years since Home Affairs closed the Cape
Town refugee office in 2012. At the time, the High Court said the
closure was unreasonable and irrational. Despite court orders to
reopen an office, Home Affairs has never done so.
Home Affairs persisted with a long legal battle, until the Supreme
Court of Appeal ordered the department to reopen the Cape Town office
at the latest by 31 March 2018, and to provide monthly status reports
on its progress.
Home Affairs sought leave to appeal from the Constitutional Court but
this was refused.
Frustrated by Home Affairs’ continued lack of progress, the Legal
Resources Centre (LRC) then applied to the Western Cape High Court for
the appointment of a Special Master to oversee the reopening and to
ensure Home Affairs complies with court orders.
The LRC, representing the Scalabrini Centre and the Somali Association
of South Africa, had also wanted refugees and new applicants for
asylum to be assisted by the department in Cape Town in the interim.
This relief was not given.
The closure of the Refugee Reception Office meant refugees could only
apply for asylum in Durban, Musina or Pretoria, and if they had
originally applied at one of those offices they had to regularly
travel and renew in person at the same office, even if they were
living in Cape Town. The courts found the closure was unfairly
penalising refugees.
But the High Court did not in the end appoint a Special Master,
instead it ordered a case management process with Home Affairs
required to file progress reports for discussion at monthly meetings
with the judge, as well as the lawyers of Home Affairs and the LRC.
In the October progress report, Home Affairs confirmed that funding
for the purchase price and installation of the office was in place.
But additional funding is unavailable for filling managerial posts.
“The department’s budget committee must now consider whether currently
available funds can be reallocated or whether officials may be
seconded to the Refugee Reception Office from other posts,” Home
Affairs reported.
“The existing project plan indicates that the landlord’s renovations
will be completed on 3 May 2022. It will take approximately three to
four months thereafter … to fit the offices out to its requirements,”
the department said in the report.
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