Court mulls refugees’ challenge to department
REFUGEE lobby groups were in court yesterday challenging what they claimed was a decision by the Department of Home Affairs not to open a new refugee reception office in Johannesburg, after the Crown Mines office was closed by a court order. Yesterday’s case may be the first in a series of challenges on refugee reception offices. Accessibility to these offices is essential for the rights of "an especially vulnerable group," the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in SA and the Co-ordinating Body of Refugee Communities said in their court papers.
Litigation has already been launched on the department’s decision to close the Port Elizabeth office, and refugee support groups are concerned the department may also seek to close the Cape Town and Durban offices. But the case argued before North Gauteng High Court Judge Francis Legodi revolved around a narrow issue: whether the department had in fact, taken a decision not to open a new office in Johannesburg.
The Crown Mines office was closed in March after businesses in the area went to court, saying it was a "nuisance". The court had, initially, also ordered the department to open a new office in Johannesburg. But the business owners who had taken the case to court abandoned that part of the order, meaning the decision was left up to the department.
Steven Budlender, counsel for the refugee organisations, argued that the department had indeed made a decision not to open a new Johannesburg office. The decision was unlawful because there had been no consultation with the public or with the standing committee on refugee affairs.
Counsel for the department, Ish Semenya SC, conceded that if, in fact, home affairs had made the decision, it would have been an unlawful one. But he said there was no such decision. Mr Semenya referred to a media statement from the department in May, in which the department said it was considering its options as to how to deal with the problems of refugee reception offices in metropolitan areas. One of them was to move all reception offices to points of entry at the country’s borders. But no decision had yet been taken.
However, Mr Budlender replied that even if that was the government’s position in May it was not its position by October, when home affairs director- general Mkuseli Apleni deposed to an affidavit in the case.
Mr Apleni’s affidavit referred unequivocally to a decision by the Cabinet to move reception offices to the borders, said Mr Budlender. He also said that, logically, there could only have been a decision. Otherwise, the fact that there was no new office in Johannesburg was just a "fluke".
Judgment was reserved.
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