The Pretoria High Court has ruled that the South African government allow 22 asylum seeking Afghans to apply for refugee status. Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said last week that the department of Home Affairs will challenge the interim court ruling to allow the men to come in the country citing safety concerns.

DEMANDS

In a statement, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) says they received a letter from attorneys representing unnamed Afghanistan nationals demanding that asylum transit visas be issued to them at Beitbridge Port of Entry. "While DHA was preparing a response to the letter, on 16 February 2023, the group who were in the company of American citizens arrived at the border requesting to be issued with asylum transit visas in order for them to enter South Africa to apply for asylum. The immigration officer refused to do so as they were all issued with multiple entry tourist visas by the Zimbabwean government on 20 January 2023," the statement said.

An American NGO Life Line Foundation took the matter to the Pretoria High Court on an extremely urgent basis and the department says this was done without their representative. "The court however, allowed the department to anticipate the interim order within 24 hours, and Home Affairs did that, but the court refused to confirm the interim order to allow the DHA to file its answering papers," Home Affairs spokesperson Siya Qoza said. The matter was heard on 20 February 2023 and an interim order was issued. Judgement was reserved to Tuesday 28 February and the court issued a judgement confirming the interim order as final.

SAFETY IGNORED

Although Motsoaledi mentioned that safety would be a major concern should the men be granted asylum, his plight was ignored. He said he would challenge the application in court but withdrew after Tuesday's judgement. "If South Africa had the military power to fight the Islamic fundamentalist group Taliban they would have done so. Thousands of people are scrambling to flee Afghanistan after they took control of the country" Motsoaledi said. He added that it was clear that America was well equipped to take them head-on like they did before. "They are the ones who went to Afghanistan to take over from the Taliban, not us, because you see, we don't have any military power," Motsoaledi said on eNCA. He said if people from Afghanistan were fleeing the Taliban and coming here, chances are they will be followed to this country and pose a deadly risk to our citizens. 

FINAL!

The court said Home Affairs is bound by law to abide by the ruling and that it should take all necessary steps to give effect to the ruling. "The DHA will deal with the asylum applications during the asylum process. The decision to abide shows that the DHA respects the rule of law. However, this should not be interpreted as opening floodgates for spurious asylum claims. The DHA will not hesitate to fight the cases in Court as it has done in this instance," Qoza added.

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