Human rights lawyers have called on the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) to expedite the proper digitalisation of its records rather than handling with caution the unblocking of unlawfully blocked IDs.

This, notes a report in The Mercury, comes amid the DHA’s probe into the citizenship of former Miss SA finalist Chidimma Adetshina which the department said also highlighted the reason for its blocking of certain duplicate IDs.

The DHA said Adetshina’s case highlighted the urgent need for the digital modernisation of Home Affairs' applications, adjudication and verification processes to insulate it against fraudulent interference.

James Chapman, an attorney at refugee human rights organisation, Scalabrini Centre, said the move towards proper digitalisation of DHA records was not new and had come up in last year’s State of the Nation Address.

‘Going forward, all births must be registered digitally as opposed to issuing hand-written non-digitalised birth registration to some and digitalised printed birth registration to others, which is the process currently. In terms of ID blocking, hundreds of thousands of SA ID holders who followed correct and lawful processes to obtain their IDs had their IDs blocked, preventing these South Africans from being able to access any ID dependent services or opportunities. Banking, access to education and employment were all compromised by ID blocking. Administratively just processes must be followed before blocking any ID and such processes were not followed, resulting in approximately 1.8m people being affected by ID blocking,’ said Chapman.

He said while Adetshina’s case was an isolated incident that dated back 24 years, it was ‘not a basis on which to paint all SA nationals with the same brush of requiring an investigation into their legal identity’.

The DHA confirmed it would provide an update once the investigation of Adetshina’s case was concluded and that it intended to press criminal charges against all implicated parties.

According to The Mercury, Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) said it noted with disappointment the ‘dishonouring of the vision enshrined in the Constitution’ that every person living in SA have their human rights protected and their dignity respected.

LHR called for calm in what it described as a ‘tragic travesty of justice’ in the treatment of Adetshina and her family.

Last week, DHA said prima facie reasons exist to suggest that fraud and identity theft may have been committed by the person recorded in Home Affairs records as Adetshina’s mother.

The department has broadened its investigation to identify and pursue any officials involved in the alleged fraudulent scheme.

Full report in The Mercury