Legal Articles and Guides

Human rights lawyers claimed victory following the Constitutional Court’s ground-breaking judgment ordering that all ‘illegal foreign’ nationals in detention at the time it handed down yesterday’s order against government be brought before a court within 48 hours, notes a Cape Times report. Previously the court was mandated to review a detention in instances where individuals were held for more than 30 days.

A Zimbabwean man who was allegedly illegally arrested and detained by rogue police officers is suing the SAPS for R1m, says a report in The Star. Nathan Meda said Gauteng Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Deliwe de Lange had failed to act on his 250-page dossier detailing the abuse and harassment he and his wife, Sherylie Tsungayi Ngorima, suffered at the hands of rogue policemen from the Elsburg police station in Germiston.

Three foreigners – from India, Pakistan and the DRC – with the aid of immigration attorney Tashriq Ahmed have succeeded in winning a landmark Western Cape High Court ruling setting aside as invalid and unconstitutional the Department of Home Affairs’ controversial Directive 21. The directive, which Home Affairs DG Mkuseli Apleni signed in February, bars refugee and asylum seekers from the right to apply for a visa in terms of the Immigration Act, notes a Weekend Argus report.

Home Affairs has agreed at the eleventh hour to grant citizenship to a stateless child born in SA, opening the way for others in the same predicament, Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) said yesterday, according to a News24 report. Following a two-year wait, the SCA was supposed to have heard the matter yesterday.