‘Meaningless’ system for asylum-seekers at mercy of poor rulings
SOUTH Africa is getting two-thirds fewer applications for asylum than a few years ago, but researchers say officials make such bad decisions that the whole system is now meaningless. Department of Home Affairs (DHA) officials are so biased and administratively unfair that asylum-seekers are systematically rejected, resulting in an asylum system which “functions solely as an instrument of immigration control”, according to a report by researcher Dr Roni Amit, of the African Centre for Migration and Society at Wits University. “These people are making life-or-death decisions about whether it is safe for an individual to be returned to his or her home country,” said Amit.
“The fact that they are routinely getting the law wrong, and are issuing rote rejections that ignore stories of rape, torture and other human rights violations, raises serious questions about the ability of DHA to perform its mandated functions. These failures mean that South Africa may be returning people to their deaths or to situations of serious human rights violations.”
The DHA reported a 64 percent drop in asylum applications from 341 602 in 2009 to 124 336 in 2010/11. Despite the reduction in pressure, the quality of decision-making did not improve, said Amit, referring back to earlier research. “Refugee status determination officers incorrectly deployed refugee law and failed to consider the details of individual claims as required in a properly administered status determination process. The result is a bureaucracy that mass-produces rejection letters without any evidence of a reasoned decision-making process,” Amit added.
Her report, “All Roads Lead to Rejection: Persistent Bias and Incapacity in South African Refugee Status Determination”, was based on 240 rejection letters from seven refugee reception centres, obtained from legal advice centres which help asylum-seekers. Additional decisions on gender-based violence were also assessed. Amit said none of the 240 rejection letters were administratively fair, and decision-making was so bad that both the Refugees Act and SA’s international legal commitments to protect refugees became “virtually meaningless”.
“The fact that reduced demand has had no apparent effect on the unsubstantiated rejection of asylum-seekers suggests that the problems in the asylum system go deeper than just a lack of capacity and may reflect the development of an institutionalised anti-asylum-seeker orientation within the DHA,” said her report.
The reduction in the number of asylum-seeker applications was mainly due to the easier access to work, study and business permits recently offered to Zimbabweans, along with the legally dubious turning away at the borders of would-be asylum-seekers who passed through another country to get to SA, or at Home Affairs offices of applicants who had not obtained asylum-seeker permits at the border.
Problems included errors of law; getting the claimant or country wrong; failure to provide adequate reasons; failure to assess the country conditions properly; and failure to provide protection for gender-based persecution victims.
SA receives the most asylum applications in the world, particularly from Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Eritrea, and “the world’s foremost asylum-seeker producing country”, Zimbabwe.
Amit recommended that Home Affairs focus on the quality not the quantity of decisions, and provide better resources and training for officials.
She also recommended better oversight by the portfolio committee on home affairs, and for Home Affairs officials to be held accountable for their violations of the law.
June 19 2012 LOUISE FLANAGAN