Home Affairs reprimanded for tardiness

Published Jun 30, 2015

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Johannesburg - The Joburg couple who took the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) to task over not being allowed to travel with their 15-year-old daughter without the unabridged certificate has abandoned their bid as the department issued the certificate at the last hour.

The high court in Pretoria heard on Monday how Paul and Tracy Lee Derbyshire were sent a text message informing them that their certificate was ready for collection on Saturday, a day after they lodged an urgent application with the high court on Friday after attempts to get the certificate had seemingly failed.

The family applied for the unabridged certificate on May 13 at the Randburg Home Affairs office as they wanted to travel to the UK on Wednesday, during the school holidays.

Legal representative Kaveer Guiness said the family were assured by officials from the DHA that the certificate would be ready by July 1. The family were, however, told upon enquiring on June 18 that they would have to wait a further eight weeks to receive the certificate. As a last resort, the family then proceeded to seek intervention from the courts to force the DHA to act immediately.

While the court heard that the family were told to pick up their certificate on Monday morning, Judge Cynthia Pretorius lambasted the department’s representatives for their inability to respond to the matter in time.

Judge Pretorius denied the department’s request for a postponement in order to seek an affidavit in argument of the costs incurred by the family as she contended they had more than enough time to prepare as they were served the order on June 26.

The judge ordered that Home Affairs pay the cost for the application brought forward as the delay was their fault.

Guiness said the major problem with issuing of certificates was the lack of clarification on the process to be followed and receiving them within a reasonable time frame.

“No one could tell us if the parents were allowed to use the old certificates to travel and how long the process actually takes. People just come up with the figure of eight weeks, but nothing is written to that effect,” he said.

Meanwhile, departmental spokesman Mayihlome Tshwete said all the information had been communicated to members of the public on numerous platforms several times, and the parents’ decision to take the department to court was, therefore, unreasonable.

He said there were many contact details that were made available to the public to call for queries on the process to deal with issues involving certificates.

“We have clearly stated that the standard operating time was eight weeks, and for them to lodge the claim just before the expected date of delivery was a bit premature,” Tshwete added.

The Star

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