Press Release: LHR granted leave to appeal decision on refugees’ right to work and operate businesses
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) have been granted leave to appeal the dismissal of the case that challenged the unlawful closure of refugee and asylum-seeker traders’ informal businesses by the police. The challenge comes in the light of the right to work and trade as refugees and asylum-seekers in South Africa.
In July this year, LHR argued an application in the North Gauteng High Court against the Limpopo provincial government, the police and several other departments on behalf of the traders, arguing that refugees and asylum-seekers living in South Africa legally were "entitled to trade and operate business to earn a living in circumstances where they had no other means of livelihood". The application was dismissed in September by Judge Natvarial Ranchod.
LHR, representing the Somali Association of South Africa and the Ethiopian Community of South Africa, has now been granted leave to appeal that dismissal and will now head to the Supreme Court of Appeal.
Attorney Anjuli Maistry has welcomed the decision, saying, “We are delighted by this small victory. There is a reasonable prospect that the SCA will arrive at a different decision that will protect the right to trade for refugee ad asylum-seeker traders”.
According to Maistry, “Our clients were very distressed by the dismissal of the case. At the moment, these traders are unable to support themselves and the Court failed to acknowledge this. The Court did not consider the extreme difficulties they have had in trying to apply for and receive operating licences from the relevant municipalities.”
Background to the case:
In a crackdown on businesses perceived to be operating illegally, known as “Operation Hardstick”, police have been closing businesses and confiscating the stock of refugee and asylum-seeker traders. The closures and confiscations have led to the traders losing their livelihoods. These are largely small tuckshops and spaza shops operating in remote areas in Limpopo.
SAPS apparently introduced Operation Hardstick in an alleged effort to stop the operation of illegal businesses in Limpopo but this operation has had the intended effect of closing down many small businesses run by asylum-seekers and refugees. These closures have clearly targeted small businesses owned by asylum-seekers and recognised refugees resulting in unfair, inequitable and illegal treatment of asylum‐seekers and refugees.
Refugees and asylum-seekers are often unable to find stable work in South Africa and without this form of informal employment, they are deprived of their only means of financial support. They have been left destitute and in some cases homeless. The personal circumstances of each of the applicants in the matter has been set out in court papers. Those affidavits paint a picture of the most naked form of xenophobic discrimination and utter desperation.