Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi says community leaders and organisations want to join government's legal proceedings on asylum and illegal migration, but lack the legal means to do so. Kubayi chairs the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) on Migration.

She said government was considering whether it could fund the groups or otherwise help them, and that legal teams, including senior counsel, had offered their services pro bono.

What Kubayi said

Three groups met the IMC: the Black Business Community, the Bhinca Nation Organisation and Hlangana Mzansi. They want to support government's position in court and to share their lived experiences and the socioeconomic challenges they link to illegal migration. Those links are the groups' own views, not findings established in court.

The proceedings involve a case featuring the Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town and conflicting Gauteng High Court judgments on asylum seekers detained at the Lindela Repatriation Centre. The cases have been consolidated, according to the report. Kubayi said the groups do not have the legal means to join.

How we got here

At a briefing on 8 October, Kubayi said a Constitutional Court judgment on asylum applications, together with a subsequent Home Affairs directive, opened the asylum application process to foreign nationals regardless of how they entered South Africa. She said the judgment had "unintended consequences", with thousands queuing at refugee reception centres. "We confirmed that all refugee offices were overwhelmed by the numbers of those coming in for applications," she said.

Tensions grew between locals and anti-illegal immigration groups, who vowed to keep disrupting operations at refugee offices. On 11 October the IMC said it was trying to meet the Constitutional Court's order while addressing citizens' concerns, and planned to ask the court for a supervisory order. The committee said: "So we understand the impatience; we hear our citizens in what they are raising."

What we do not yet know

  • Which court will hear the consolidated matter, and when.
  • Whether the groups have applied to join, and whether the court will allow it.
  • Whether government will fund them, and on what terms.
  • What the Scalabrini Centre and refugee organisations make of the groups' bid. We have not heard from them.