Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) scored major legal victories in two separate cases on behalf of people who have been fighting for years to continue their lives in SA.

The Mercury reports in the one case before the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria), a man born in the country at last obtained citizenship through the court's intervention.

In the other case, two men who fled their countries of origin as they feared for their lives have now received refugee status.

In the first matter, LHR assisted Emmanuel Bukweya Ngenani, who wanted to be recognised as a SA citizen and to receive a SA identity document. LHR successfully argued that the Department of Home Affairs’ refusal to issue Ngenani with an ID was irrational.

LHR attorney in the matter Charne Tracey said the department had wrongfully denied similarly placed persons in the past the right to citizenship.

She pointed out that in terms of an earlier SCA judgment, there was a right to apply for citizenship in a country where one was born, had lived in and which was the only country the person had ever known.

In the second victory, the court awarded refugee status to two people only identified as JN and KHG, for safety reasons.

In what is deemed an unusual step, the court overturned the decision by the department not to grant them refugee status and the judge himself granted them such status.

Tracey, who also appeared in these applications, said cases like these highlighted the inadequacies of the asylum seeker process in SA.

She said there were critical flaws in the system which placed asylum seekers at risk of being unlawfully expelled or deported from SA.

Full report in The Mercury