CARMEL RICKARD: SA’s lunatic asylum
SA’s legal protections for asylum-seekers are hard to beat — fortunately for those who fall foul of the government’s bumbling bureaucracy
Of all African countries, Uganda hosts the most refugees. About 1.5-million call the country home — at least for now — compared with about 267,000 refugees and asylum-seekers officially in SA. But SA’s legal protections for refugees are hard to beat, whether you agree with the philosophy behind them or not. Two legal decisions, delivered in the closing moments of 2021, make this plain.
One, from the Constitutional Court on December 30, will affect many asylum-seekers who did not apply for refugee status immediately after arriving in SA, and who have been facing deportation as a result. This decision reaffirms the meaning of a crucial section of the law: asylum-seekers cannot be returned to a country where they face persecution...
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