Programme News
3 February 2012
(Press release)
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), with the financial support of Legal Aid South Africa, has brought a challenge to the new rules of judicial review, which application will be heard in the North Gauteng High Court on Monday 6 February 2012.
The application has been brought against the Rules Board for Courts of Law, who drafted the rules, and the Minister of Justice and Constitutional...
30 January 2012
(News)
The Mhlanganisweni community, who has lodged a land claim against world-renowned game reserve MalaMala, received help from an unexpected source recently: their neighbours. Private game reserve Londolozi, whose own land is also under claim, agreed to manage the community’s proposed new eco-business on MalaMala. In addition Londolozi promised an investment of R75 million to the community...
23 January 2012
(News)
Asylum-seekers entering South Africa are no longer being issued with the necessary documents to apply for refugee status. Without a so-called section 23 permit, they are being turned away from Refugee Reception Offices (RROs) and denied the opportunity to legalize their stay in the country.
“We keep coming back here but they won’t help us without those papers,” said Abdul, a...
20 January 2012
(Press release)
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) has noted the Department of Home Affairs’ continued efforts to unlawfully prevent refugees from submitting applications for asylum at the country’s refugee reception offices. In terms of a recent policy change, new applicants for asylum will be required to produce an Asylum Transit Permit, which should be available at border posts, when they...
12 January 2012
(News)
The Constitutional Court has ruled that parents of children who have been removed from their care by the state will now have access to an automatic review of that decision.
Child rights advocates say this will help fill a "lacuna" or loophole in the Children's Act that has in the past made it difficult for disenfranchised families to challenge state officials who have wrongfully...
22 December 2011
(News)
The Constitutional Court is to be asked to shed some legal certainty on the question whether our government can deport “undesirable” people facing a possible death penalty if sent back to the country from which they fled. Home Affairs will ask the court to review a Johannesburg High Court order which earlier this year ruled that the minister of home affairs may not deport...
22 December 2011
(News)
DOCUMENT - SOUTH AFRICA: CALL FOR SOUTH AFRICA TO FULFIL ITS INTERNATIONAL AND DOMESTIC OBLIGATIONS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE RIGHTS OF REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PUBLIC STATEMENT
Index: AFR 53/007/2011
20 December 2011
Amnesty International welcomes the recent rulings in the South African High Court affecting the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers. The North...
15 December 2011
(News)
In recent months the judiciary has come under attack for being anti-transformative. Yet the Constitutional Court’s most recent judgments reveal its true transformative credentials. They also reveal the transformative potential of the judiciary generally. The violent dispossession wrought by colonialism and apartheid left millions of people without secure access to land. We continue to...
14 December 2011
(Press release)
The North Gauteng High Court has handed down judgment today setting aside Department of Home Affairs' decision not to open a refugee reception office in Johannesburg and directing the Director-General to reconsider his decision.
Lawyers for Human Rights was representing the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants and the Coordinating Body of the Refugee Communities. These groups challenged...
13 December 2011
(Press release)
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) and the Refugee Rights Centre at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, on behalf of the Somali Association of South Africa (SASA) and the Project for Conflict Resolution and Development (PCRD) was granted an order by consent today, Tuesday 13 December 2011 in the Eastern Cape High Court in Port Elizabeth regarding the closure of the Port Elizabeth Refugee...