LHR takes Home Affairs to court over blocked IDs
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) is challenging the Department of Home Affairs' ‘arbitrary’ ID blocking practice without which births can't be registered, child support and other grants can't be accessed and children are excluded from or discriminated against at school, and struggle to access health care and immunisation programmes.
The Children’s Institute at UCT, represented by the Centre for Child Law, has been admitted as an amicus curiae in the case to be argued this week in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria), according to GroundUp.
In December 2020, the Minister of Home Affairs revealed in Parliament that the DHA was dealing with more than 800 000 blocked ID cases, involving alleged duplicates and what it claims are ‘fraudulent’ IDs.
In September 2023, DHA admitted in its answering affidavit that ‘these cases have become more and more as the years went by’, and that in May 2023, the Minister had agreed to remove blocks from 1.4m people’s IDs.
However, approximately 700 000 IDs remained blocked at end of July 2023.
LHR said that over the past five years it had assisted more than 500 people with blocked IDs, the majority of them poor, black South Africans. None were aware of their blocked IDs until they attempted to access a service. None received prior notice of DHA’s intention to block their IDs, or investigate their status, nor were written reasons for the decision provided.
In the application, which is being opposed by the Minister and the department, LHR asks for an order declaring ID blocking unlawful and unconstitutional, an order that all IDs be unblocked, and order that the department follows ‘just administrative action’.
The harmful impact of this on children is addressed in an affidavit by senior researcher Paula Proudlock at the Children’s Institute, using case studies of children (and their parents) which the institute is assisting.
In the GroundUp report, she said a study by Unicef estimated that in 2017, 2m eligible children had been excluded from accessing social grants in SA.
The absence of a birth certificate or an ID card for the caregiver was the primary reason for this.
‘Ultimately, they suffer significantly when they have no say or choice in the matter. It is a violation of their rights to participate in decisions that affect their rights and to have their best interests considered.’
The hearing has been set down for 20 and 21 September 2023.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
