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More than 380k South Africans blocked from IDs lawyers challenge home affairs

Source: News 24, 26/08/2025

One of the applicants, Phindile Mazibuko, became a victim of identity theft in 2012 when fraudulent transactions occurred, using her personal details.

-The Pretoria High Court found that the department of home affairs had violated constitutional rights without due process.
-Only half of Lawyers for Human Rights` test group has been unblocked, while 385 000 identities remain blocked nationwide.
-LHR appeals extension, urges affected people to seek help now.

Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) are intensifying pressure on the department of home affairs over the national ID-blocking crisis, accusing the state of acting too slowly to unblock qualifying individuals despite a landmark court ruling.

In January last year, the Pretoria High Court found that the department`s practice of blocking IDs without due process was unlawful and unconstitutional. One of the applicants, Phindile Mazibuko, a Swati citizen and South African permanent resident since 1998, fell victim to identity theft in 2012 when fraudsters used her personal details.

She reported this to the department of home affairs, which discovered two identity numbers linked to her name, one legitimate and one fraudulently obtained by an unknown person in 1997.
In 2018, after a six-year investigation, the department concluded that her permanent residency and identity document had been unlawfully obtained, threatening deportation and criminal charges without providing proper reasons.
The department placed a `marker` on her identity number, automatically blocking her ID and preventing her from travelling, voting, accessing healthcare, opening bank accounts or Mazibuko lived in constant fear of deportation and separation from her family, unable to visit relatives in Eswatini.
The blocking occurred without following proper administrative procedures. This while no hearing, written reasons or appeal process was provided.
The court granted her an interdict protecting her from deportation and ordered the department to implement fair procedures for future cases, highlighting the serious consequences of identity theft and bureaucratic overreach.

The court ruled that the department had been using its internal systems to block IDs without giving affected individuals notice, reasons or an opportunity to respond.The court ordered the department to unblock the IDs of 137 LHR clients immediately and to investigate all blocked IDs nationally.
It also found that the department`s justification for unilaterally blocking the IDs, that it was combating identity fraud, did not exempt it from following the law.Many of those affected, the court noted, were women and children, groups already vulnerable to exclusion from education, healthcare and social security.
While the department has unblocked more than half of the IDs in the LHR test group, the organisation`s statelessness unit attorney Palesa Maloisane says compliance has been patchy.

We have received confirmation that more than half of our clients` IDs have been unblocked, but some remain blocked, and others are still unverified. We are still in the process of ensuring that each client`s matter is fully resolved.

Palesa Maloisane
The judgment gave the department until February 2027, an additional 24 months, to complete its nationwide review of blocked IDs and report on remedial measures. Lawyers for Human Rights has appealed this extension at the Supreme Court of Appeal, arguing it allows the injustice to persist.`We encourage all affected persons not to wait 24 months. Visit your nearest department office with the court judgment and order to seek assistance now,` Maloisane urged.

The statelessness unit of LHR, led by Thandeka Chauke and Maloisane, provides direct legal aid, strategic litigation and advocacy for stateless people and those denied citizenship rights.
The unit is also developing a feminist litigation strategy to address the gendered, intersectional impact of statelessness.
Home affairs spokesperson Thulani Mavuso said the matter was sub judice, limiting what the department could say.
`The matter of blocked identity documents is being considered by a court of law and the department of home affairs deems it improper to comment further at the moment,` Mavuso said.

However, he said the department had cut the number of blocked IDs from 2.5 million to 385 000 by the end of July 2025, through various interventions.We have drawn up a comprehensive plan to eliminate blocked IDs. Collaboration with organisations representing affected people will help us reach and assist as many as possible.

Thulani Mavuso
The court judgment highlighted that, without valid IDs, citizens and lawful residents are effectively erased from the system, unable to register births, access grants, get jobs or even sit for school exams.
One applicant in the case, a single mother, was unable to claim the child support grant for years because her ID was blocked.
Another could not finalise her divorce because she was deemed `nonexistent` in the population register.
For LHR, this fight is about more than bureaucratic errors, it is about restoring dignity, legal identity and basic human rights to hundreds of thousands of people.

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