Programme News

20 April 2013
(News)
Judgment has been reserved in the Eastern Cape High Court in a battle between Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) and the Home Affairs Department. This concerns a decision by the director general of Home Affairs to close a Refugee Reception Office (RRO) in Port Elizabeth. LHR has approached the court to have the office reopened after it was closed in October 2011. The lobby group has argued that the...
20 April 2013
(Press release)
Judgment has been reserved in the case challenging the closure of the Port Elizabeth Refugee Reception Office in the Eastern Cape High Court. Lawyers for Human Rights and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University’s Refugee Rights Centre are challenging the closure - the latest in a series of moves by the Department of Home Affairs to relocate RROs to the country’s borders. LHR...
19 April 2013
(News)
The Home Affairs Ministry is set to be hauled before the Eastern Cape High Court tomorrow over the closure of the Port Elizabeth Refugee Reception Office. "Our argument includes that there was no consultation with the public (when closing the office), there was no attempt to engage with asylum seekers and refugees in Port Elizabeth or organisations representing them,” said head of...
19 April 2013
(News)
The Port Elizabeth High Court would on Friday hear an application for review brought by the Somali Association of South Africa Eastern Cape and the Project For Conflict Resolution and Development against the Minister of Home Affairs and three of her officials. The civil society organizations through Lawyers for Human Rights asked the court to review a decision made by the director general of the...
18 April 2013
(Press release)
Lawyers for Human Rights and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University’s Refugee Rights Centre will appear in the Eastern Cape High Court tomorrow, 19 April 2013, to challenge the closure of the Port Elizabeth Refugee Reception Office (RRO). LHR is representing the Somali Association of South Africa and the Project for Conflict Resolution and Development who first challenged the...
27 March 2013
(Press release)
Statelessness is a reality for more than 12-million people around the world, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In absence of a system to identify and protect the stateless in South Africa, it will be challenging to obtain reliable figures on this population. A stateless person is one who is not recognised as a national by any country. Stateless persons are not protected...
16 March 2013
(News)
South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs will not extend the documentation exercise for Zimbabwean nationals living in South Africa, an official in the department has said. In May 2009 South Africa suspended the deportation of undocumented Zimbabweans and later introduced a special dispensation under which Zimbabwean nationals were given an opportunity to regularise their stay in South...
28 February 2013
(News)
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) said on Wednesday its to challenge the Department of Home Affairs’ closing of the Port Elizabeth refugee reception office would appear before the Eastern Cape High Court on Thursday. LHR teamed up with the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University’s Refugee Rights Centre in representing the Somali Association of South Africa and the Project for Conflict...
19 February 2013
(News)
Refugees and asylum seekers receive substantially less protection from the government than they used to when the asylum system was first established in the 1990s. This is claimed by Lawyers for Human Rights and the African Centre for Migration and Society, in a new report published last week. The report, which monitors trends over the past two years, says South Africa has experienced a de facto...
18 February 2013
(News)
Tighter control over immigration — as has been suggested by African National Congress (ANC) policy adopted at the Mangaung conference in December last year — will not solve South Africa’s concerns over jobs and crime, but will make these problems worse, according to refugee rights groups and researchers. A range of civil society organisations this week made presentations to...