Johannesburg - Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba and his immigration officers have been ordered to treat illegal immigrants with respect and dignity before deporting them to their countries of origin.
The ruling in the Constitutional Court on Thursday came after Gigaba and his director-general, Mkhuseli Apleni, made a failed attempt to overturn a Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruling against them.
Thursday’s ruling came after Gigaba and Apleni went to the Concourt in November last year to appeal against an SCA ruling that the department had ill-treated 15 illegal immigrants.
Among them was a Ghanaian citizen and 14 Bangladeshi citizens. The 15, all foreign nationals, were immediately arrested and detained for deportation after their temporary asylum-seeker permits expired and their applications for asylum were unsuccessful.
Pending their deportation, they were detained in various areas in 2013, including St Albans and North End Prisons, KwaZakhele and New Brighton police stations in Port Elizabeth. They were detained for periods ranging from four days to 35 days before they were released.
Due to their plight, the 15 approached the high court in Port Elizabeth for remedial action, arguing their incarceration alongside awaiting-trial prisoners was a violation of their rights. They argued instead they should not have been kept in prisons but in detainment centres for illegal immigrants, such as Lindela Repatriation Centre in Krugersdorp.
The court ruled against them but the SCA in May last year found that Home Affairs had violated their rights.
Upholding the illegal immigrants’ application, the SCA found that the case was against the backdrop that “South Africa has kilometre upon kilometre of porous borders which the Department of Home Affairs had difficulty controlling”.
In a unanimous judgment, the court found that section 34(1) made it clear that the director-general was required to apply his or her mind to what places were appropriate for the detention of illegal foreigners. The Concourt also ruled that the 15 were detailed illegally.
@BaldwinNdaba
The Star